


Why You Are and Why I Am

by TheSecretAccomplice



Category: The Creatures (Youtube RPF), cowchop
Genre: Ashhbearr - Freeform, DanzNewz - Freeform, DexterManning124, ImmortalHD, Kootra - Freeform, Ninetalesgamer - Freeform, Other, SSOHPKC - Freeform, SlyFoxHound, UberHaxorNova - Freeform, goldenblackhawk - Freeform, yabaecip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-09-03 10:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 162,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8708530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecretAccomplice/pseuds/TheSecretAccomplice
Summary: With his job neglected, family falling apart, and his closest friend becoming a stranger, Detective Seamus O'Doherty is assigned a new case to prove he hasn't fully faded from who he used to be. As soon as the files are placed in his hands, he enters the mind of a notorious killer, and finds himself more attached to not just the case, but more so the murderer himself. Hours upon hours are spent interrogating the killer, and as more information is revealed within the time, Detective O'Doherty learns that he is more than an audience to the grizzly deaths.





	1. Twenty Two Days

There is good in this world, and there is bad. One can triumph the other in any situation, sometimes the better wins, other times it's evil. The good takes over the battlefield while the bad rot and decay into the deadened ground. At moments, the bad grabs hold of the upper hand as it's the good that watches in silence. Suffers in silence. Dies in silence. There is no in between. Either you're good or bad, raging or silent, dead or alive.

And at times, you can't tell which you are, dead or alive.

Seamus rubbed the sleep from his eyes, feeling that way again that morning. He was breathing, like anybody would, anybody should, but the coldness of oxygen felt numb to his lungs. Breathing didn't signify any life in him, but moving organs weren't the definition of the deceased either. He was simply just there, not living nor dead.

But dying.

Goosebumps freckled across his light skin once his blankets of warmth were removed, warmth being a rarity in such a cold season. His muscles shivered all the way to the bathroom, teeth chattering, and hands trembling. The cold was another thing associated with the dark clouds of death, sweeping the ground in a puff of shadowed smolder. It crept up onto you, into you, until you weren't you, just a corpse with your face.

That's what Seamus saw in the mirror.

Bags were creased under his blue eyes, they blinked and blinked again, 'I'm alive' they screamed, but their voice was weak and muffled, swallowed and forgotten under the pain. Seamus' pain. He had been feeling as such for almost a month, twenty two days as he counted. Remembered. Unable to forget each morning of the same routine and feelings, thoughts, experiences.

He stared at himself in the mirror twenty two times.

He let out a long breath, the shaking in his body decreasing as he adjusted to the temperature of fifty eight degrees. Things weren't always as pale and eerie in his life, but death was always a constant factor. It must be in order to be a detective as himself, every case has a blood trail following after it, and every blood trail leads to a body. Or two. Or ten.

Sometimes, none at all...

He had been with cold corpses and mystery murderers for going on thirteen years, thirteen years of what could easily be wrapped up in a half hour episode of Scooby-Doo. Get the case. Find the culprit. Get the case. Find the culprit. Some were easier than others, some innocent, some a story book with blood ink. Some would take days, others weeks, some remained open for what seemed like years.

To Seamus, twenty two days is what seemed like years.

He had dealt with cases involving hit and runs, deaths of revenge, occasional suicides and the facts leading up. The blood trails leading up. He had stared into the eyes of victims, those who gotten out with their lives, witnesses of an act, those who suffered great loss, some who were rescued. Victims of abduction, victims of torture, victims of rape. To see the pain behind, inside, and on their eyes.

He could empathize.

He also met eyes with killers. Mass murderers, or ones that didn't get away for so long. Professionals, psychos, those that were new to the game of life. But they new the rules: take it from others. From cases of drive by's, to crowd shootings, to random murders for attention, to those plotted for a specific person for a specific reason. Vengeance, the spot light, asperger's.

He had gotten used to eyes like that, faces like that. Like those. Like his.

Eyes that carried tears, or hatred, hidden pain, or nothing. Mouths that frowned and pouted, some grimacing in disgust, they bit their lips, their tongue, their teeth sometimes clenched. Some just stayed at a fine line, or perhaps owned the lightest smile. Their eyebrows tense, their shoulders hunched, dropped, bobbing and sobbing.

Faces of a victim. Faces of a killer.

Faces which at times he mirrored.

He was hurt like a victim, and in some ways, he was a victim. He had been the one to have something stolen, to suffer that loss, that tremor in an earthquake life, that part of his heart to lose all light. Burning red to black, and beyond such a darkness. As much as he wasn't a killer, he knew about them like the back of his hand. Their feelings, their minds, thoughts, beliefs, reasons.

Mainly the feelings. The feelings...

The feeling of emptiness, nothing to hold onto, nothing to hold him in return, nothing because it was taken away. Lost, but not found, as his mind murmured it. The feeling of sadness, the melancholy droning that was his heartbeat, some viewed one as a second to be alive. His was a timer, counting down the seconds till he was damn near his grave. He wasn't depressed, nor attempted to bring that grave any closer, he just became solemn. Unaffectable. Not stronger, but hardened.

His shell.

He wouldn't have been this way if it weren't for that day, that day twenty two days ago, three weeks and a day, a year through blue eyes. If he could change it, he would, the feelings of today couldn't even pass as feelings. Just a tingling sensation where his heart should be. He's constantly reminded of it, what happened that afternoon.

And the day after. And the day after.

January 4th. A day branded into his mind, a day that shouldn't be labeled as 'a day', more so 'the day'. The day he was called the victim. It all happened so fast, the worry at first, then the news second. How it shattered his world, how the tears kept flowing, some from himself, most from a smaller presence in his arms, smaller tears bleeding through his shirt.

Bleeding. Step one of his slow demise.

And letting go didn't come easily. He'd try and try again, needing to make ends meet. No cliff hangers, no page or stone unturned. Try and try, he just needed to try. Time passed, time that amounted to twenty two days past January forth, and letting go still had not been accepted. He was a detective, his instincts begged him to keep to it, never give in so easily. Because what was taken needed to be found.

Dead. Or alive.

That was also a question he pondered about himself.

He looked away from the mirror, no answers it gave, only but a shallow face that resembled his own. A familiar stranger, a being who he had descended to become, sinking and sinking in water. Almost drowning in blood. In guilt. He blamed himself for that fateful happening on the chilly winter day. Just like how the wind picks up the flakes of frozen crystals, wooing them away, going, going, gone.

Like her.

Going.

Going.

Gone.

Never to be forgotten.

Needing to be found.

His eyes glazed over his left hand, the shine from it catching his somewhat squinting eyes. He sighed whenever he looked at it, not the hand, but the finger. Not the finger, but the ring. The promise. The reminder. The pain. He couldn't bare to look at it, but removing it would take the life of him. He was living after all. Yet, even if he were to muster up enough determination to slip off the band, there would be a tan line to last for ages.

What seemed like ages.

No matter what he did, he'd always wear a reminder on that finger.

And many more in his mind, and life.

It was and wasn't his fault for them, most would see it one way, he saw the other. A victim was what they would both agree on, but past that, a line was drawn. One side saying that it would be okay, he was innocent, things happen and we have no way of preventing them. But, Seamus knew that at times you can. And that day was one of them, he should've been there, giving her company, helping her out, making her smile, making himself remember why he wore that ring.

Instead, he didn't. He wasn't there when she needed him, to aid her. Instead, he was there, the other unknown. He was her company, and he still was in his mind. He was the reason she was gone. And his mind raced with ideas that he and he were of no difference. Both took part in why he was this way now, one a taker, one a victim.

Just like any other case.

Still open.

Just like any other case.

His case.

His feet trailed after the same steps he made yesterday, and the weeks before as they traveled out of the bathroom, a somber yawn leaving his mouth, a yawn, not a scream. A yell. A shout. A call. For her, for help, sometimes for him. An echo heard around the world, dialed down to whispers and helpless sobs through time. Her name, her name is all that tumbled out of his mouth, how pretty it sounded, it was, but how it pained his eardrums to have that name beat off of them.

We have to keep looking...we need to...she's about the last thing I have...

About.

He wasn't sure why he was still looking, there were no leads, no clues, no new information, not saying that there was any old to go off of. Maybe it was just the determined mind of an officer, that badge meaning he had a job to do, a job to protect the people, his people, her. And he had failed at that, running down a path like death row once understanding his mistake. The job he didn't do, protect.

He had the people. His people.

Not her.

His own life was another motivation, his personal life that had been toyed with, beaten, weighed down, shredded. Say it however you want or like, it all meant the same: dead. He didn't want to say the same for her. Reluctance, perhaps that was another, three times is a supposed charm. In denial a forth, love a fifth, closure a sixth. Seventh, eighth, ninth.

On and on the list goes, all to ease the knots in his half empty stomach. His half empty mind, almost empty life.

Almost.

About.

He still had some part of it, part of him, the smaller figure in his arms was what. That being was all he had. That, and a half-assed hunch. A dying hunch.

"Daddy!"

His eyes held up a facade at that word from that voice, that voice from the smaller figure. His daughter. That part of him that still managed to keep him together, the second thing he still had of her. His daughter that second, that ring the first. His light ones found her dark ones, ones of a deep brown and so utterly beautiful. Yet another pair of eyes he mimicked, mirrored, copied. He brightened his, no matter how tired, woeful, and damaged they were underneath. He pushed that away for her, for the sake of her, the only thing he had anymore.

He couldn't risk losing her, too.

He bent down on one knee, smiling boldly at the seven year old, her hair still a wild mess from hours and hours of peaceful sleep. That was one thing he couldn't master, crooks and thieves he dealt with daily, studying them and overpowering them, but he couldn't manage a regular sleep schedule. He didn't know which hurt worse, the tears that weighed his eyes down for a few restful hours, or the empty side of the bed he kept drawing himself closer to throughout the night.

A mixture of both, it appeared. It was.

It was.

"Hey, buttercup." He whispered, holding Stefani close, kissing her cheek softly, an act of appreciation, a secret meaning of never letting her go. A wanting. A needing, a hoping, a wish. If he couldn't protect his wife, he could protect his daughter. He wanted. He needed, he hoped, he wished. He placed kiss after kiss, Stefani giggling at her father's love. She knew how happy he was to see her.

It was like this every morning. All because of that day, her father tried blinding her away from the adult world, her childhood should just be left a hazy, fond memory. But, she was smart for her age, observant, curious as all children are. The difference between her and other children, other children simply asked questions when wondering something. Stefani understood. All too well.

She knew what happened on that forth of January, her ears had picked up snip its from various others, policemen and women alike her father. Case...missing...your wife...I'm so sorry...Seamus? She pieced them together with the tears from her father, her mind comprehending that her family had been ripped apart.

Thus the smaller tears bleeding through his shirt.

Day to day life had been different since that afternoon, a simple run for groceries sending their life off path, yet at the same time, right on track. This was how their life was meant to go, depressing as it was. That was their life of all the others in the world, that was theirs. Depressing. And Stefani understood. She was living it after all, there would be no way of avoiding understanding. She was a bit mature for her age, her childhood not so long as he chased it away. Took it away.

Like snowflakes.

Like her.

"How'd you sleep last night?" Seamus whispered to his daughter, brushing his fingers through the ends of her hair.

"Good." She answered, only because she had to. Any other answer, she knew, would upset her father even more, he had already been through too much. She hadn't slept all too good, good being at the far end of the spectrum. She had trouble, was all she knew, she had trouble sleeping ever since that afternoon. Ever since...the loss, as she put it. She'd be tired of course, but just lay there for hours, wondering, pondering.

What?

Where?

Why?

What did she do in order to deserve this? Where had she gone? Where had he taken her to? Why? Why did he take her? Was it him? Was it her? Was it her father and herself? Accident? Purpose? Random? Planned? For how long? For what? Why? Her questions ran in circles, chasing their tails and unanswering the one asked prior. The stress. The stress kept Stefani awake, laying in a dark room with storm clouds covering her mind, covering her eyes, covering her cries, questions, calls.

For help.

For her.

Sometimes for him.

She didn't sleep as peacefully as her father believed. She didn't sleep at all.

"What about you, daddy?"

He didn't sleep at all.

"I slept okay. It was a little colder than usual." He told her, giving the innocent an innocent answer, not knowing she saw right through that nowadays. His charade had failed, she had peeked behind the curtain, exposing the trick a 'magician' never tells. Because that was all he had anymore, a curtain. Not a wall that was sturdy enough, a curtain that could be drawn back anytime and stared behind.

Seamus was cracking, she took that back, he had cracked. Life had no meaning to him anymore, it all just being a wasteful blur from hour to hour. Only a few things had any value to him anymore, three. No more, no less. His daughter, of course, the light of his life with her mother's eyes. That ring, what it represented and how he vowed to stay true. Through sickness and health. Till death do you part.

Indeed.

He thought, then retracted it.

The third most important thing: finding her. How many hours he put into it, a majority would say the many hours wasted. They had their doubts, and on the inside, so did Seamus. But he kept looking. He couldn't keep her case open, his case, his case. He needed to find what he was looking for, dead or alive. Her. Dead or alive.

That's all he wondered anymore.

"Why don't you get ready for school, sweetheart? I'll start some breakfast." He told her, kissing the top of her head while standing up. She giggled as she agreed, stepping back into her room to get ready. She knew her father was in pain, taking sneak peeks behind the scenes to see him crumbling at her feet to ashes, hoping for a miracle, a change, a clue.

Or her altogether.

She loved her fatherly dearly, but seeing him wear away at the age of thirty five smarted her heart. She also loved her mother...

Seamus let out a breath before standing back up, shivering slightly while departing to the kitchen. That's how mornings were, that's how they had been. Twenty two days. Waking up with the below freezing temperatures, none could compare to the climate of his heart. Seeing the apple of his eye, all smiles and beautiful. But, he had no idea that she hurt almost as much as he did. Cook some breakfast, the conversation at the table would be shallow, but with an elephant in the room, it's hard to see past it.

A few times Stefani brought it up, asking when mom would be home, or would everything be okay? She needed to keep up her faultless act of a seven year old daughter, pretending to not fully know what was happening. For all she knew, mom was just taking a vacation, 'she'll be back before you know it'. But, she did know what was happening, she knew all too well, and she knew her father couldn't take it anymore. Glancing at her spot at the table, always looking around for her, the empty bed, she knew, was the real killer.

Her number just sat in his phone, he called and called again. First it would ring, then nothing but a voicemail. Voicemail. Voicemail. Inbox full. Inbox full. Then it wouldn't ring anymore. It died, her phone, she had been gone so long. It died. He didn't want to be as optimistic as the facts.

He felt a light layer of tears brim over his eyes, leaning himself against the marble countertop as he blinked them away, another thing that separated him from the dead. Possibly even the living. His life was in pieces, some here, some there, some out there...somewhere...somewhere...

They say pain only makes you stronger the more you deal with it.

He has dealt.

Where's the strength?

*********

Her brown hair, long, lengthy, lovely. Her eyes, sparkling, mahogany, full, wondrous, a window to her guiltless soul. Her lips, pink, parted, smiling, beautiful, soft. Everything about her was of those descriptions, her laugh, her personality, her style, body, life. Lovely. Wondrous. Beautiful.

Missed.

He kept his eyes locked on that photo on his desk, her face in particular, his daughter's face, his face. Ones he hadn't seen in a while, including his own. He was tired all the time, tired from losing sleep and the loss of her. Ashley...Ashley, please... He only smiled for his daughter, feigning content, or what content could be scraped from the empty jar of his world. Other than that, he never smiled.

He didn't sleep.

He could never sleep.

Stefani didn't smile as much anymore, closed mouth at the least. She only smiled for a few seconds, in the past it seemed like hours, days. She smiled until her muscles ached, cheeks pink, her smiles bleeding into her sleep. Now, they were distant memories, lost in time like that photo. He couldn't even remember when it was taken, all he knew was that it was taken when times were better. And that it was his favorite.

It was her face, though, that he missed the most. Her hair. Her eyes. Her lips. Stolen. Gone. Missed. Ashley...?!? He sighed, letting his eyes fall away from the photo, the only thing on his desk anymore. Usually case files and evidence needing to be bagged would cluttered everything around or on his desk, when he actually used to be a cop. He barely felt like one now, just a floater in life, sitting at a desk everyday, just staring at the picture and trying to find an answer.

And everytime he tried, he kept forgetting the question. The reason. The why to his what.

Everytime, there faded a little more of her.

He faded away as well, from almost everything in life. His job especially. He used to be brave, fearless, but at the same time a family man coming home safely every day. He comforted victims, interrogated suspects, closed cases, one right after another right after another. Keeping that badge on him as he was proud of the shine, what its symbol was. He still had that badge along with another.

One to show his job.

The other to show how he had failed it.

That badge. That ring.

That picture.

He opened his eyes, sighing again, hustling and bustling going on on the outside, but in his office, the world turned slowly, it seeming like a day was more than twenty four hours. That twenty two days was twenty two years. His azure eyes made their way back to that frame, that picture, that memory pulled out of his mind. It started to come back to him, he reminded himself everyday about that photo, as if one day he would forget.

Forget the good times altogether.

It was Stefani's first day of school, only a year back as she was entering kindergarten, she was only now in the first grade. Without a mother. Ashley...oh God, Ashley...where did you go...? Seamus knelt on side of Stefani, Ashley on the other side, smiling as she gave her daughter a kiss. A kiss she'd never get back. A kiss he'd never get back.

A life. A wife. He'd never get back.

Don't think that, Seamus...you can't give up...you can't give up on her...

That picture brought back so much, his happy life of the past. Yet, the past always leads to the future, and the future always fades to become the past. It all blurred in front of his eyes, the past, future, present. Life was good back then, perfect even, perhaps even a bit cliche, but Seamus loved it that way. Loved Stefani, loved Ashley. Loved his life.

A life he'd never get back.

The future followed that past, it becoming his tedious present, the present of the same pain everyday as he did the same things. Worked. Hurt. Missed. Sometimes, he'd cry. But not anymore. Not anymore. But, he did before when hearing what happened. When reading the news headlines. When being asked questions and questions from different people, but all being the same. The same, same, same.

That was when he cried.

Wife of Prominent Detective Goes Missing

Detective's Wife Kidnapped

Still No Leads on Detective's Wife's Abduction

One Week Since...

Two Weeks Since...

Three Weeks Since...

One week since he searched for her.

Two weeks since he pulled himself together.

Three weeks since he cried.

Four...god, he didn't want there to be a forth.

He straightened himself in his chair, fighting a yawn and a wince from his aching back, sighing to himself after as he tried turning away from the photo. It drew him like a moth to light. Seeing her face reminded him of his search, his searches for a chance to see her again, for just a tiny sliver of hope that he'd find something. Anything.

Seeing her face also reminded him of his dreams. Nightmares.

He'd have them from time to time, almost everytime he closed his eyes he concluded. They all felt so real, not only in one aspect. Some would be him searching through the snow piling up outside, shouting her name, looking around. Usually, police cars and other detectives would be with him, shouting, looking. But, he was alone, shivering either from the freezing temperature or from his heavy sobbing.

Sometimes he'd have a few where Stefani was taken away, too. The same man played Seamus for a fool, taking away everything he had in life, his wife, his daughter. He'd never see either of them again, oxygen hurt to breathe in by hearing that. Knowing that. Living that. She was so young...she was only seven... He couldn't continue on like that, without them. Her or her.

He'd hold his daughter for longer when having those dreams.

The worst ones were when they found Ashley. As relieving as it was, alive wasn't her state when she was discovered. Though it was a dream, the detail was unshakable, the feelings unforgettable, the likes of it turning into reality...possible. They had found her in an abandoned building, a warehouse Seamus thought. She was tied to a chair in the middle of a darkened room, he could tell it was her.

Now matter how beaten and bloody she was.

Her mouth was open, only slightly, it being filled with blood as it dried down her chin and neck. Stab wounds all over her stomach indicated what caused her demise. Her wrists held purple bruises around them, she struggled to escape, the rope burning her skin. Her faces carried scratches and scars, bruises and blemishes, hurt and pain was all Seamus could see from it, the scene, from her, the victim.

They were both victims in this cold, cruel world.

What set his heart off edge was the last detail. Her eyes. They were open, glazed over, staring at nothing, remembering the last sight she saw: the killer driving his knife into her flesh, watching the blood pour, listening to her screams until they became muffled by blood, then nothing at all. Nothing. From her. From him. From anyone.

From himself.

He could never sleep after that one. Everytime he had it, she'd always look the same.

Dead.

There was no question about that.

He sucked in a cool breath, turning away from the photo as he didn't want to remember her like that, that dead body in a chair with a face almost unrecognizable. He wanted to remember her as a beautiful wife, a terrific mother, a dear friend, a fantastic person.

Sounds like I'm planning out the writing on her tomb.

Stop it, Seamus, you have to keep looking, she might not be dead...might not...might...

His thoughts became dormant for now as there was a knock on his office door, depicting the time, he knew who it was. "Hey, Seamus." Eddie greeted with a smile, his greeting calm like it always was these days. He always came in around nine, an hour later than himself. He would've come in earlier, but he knew Seamus needed some time to himself.

They had been partners for ten years, best friends for just a bit more. They had been there for one another, and as of the day, Eddie was always there. He, along with Stefani, knew Seamus couldn't deal with day to day life anymore, living just reminded him of something she could be not. She was there and wasn't there, in his mind, but not in his arms. In his heart, but not in that bed. She wasn't at home. She was at home. She wasn't at his work. She was at his work. She was his work.

She was the only case he had anymore.

She was more important. And he wasn't even sure if she would remain the most important with time.

"Hey, Ed." Seamus greeted the other, Eddie taking a seat in his own desk chair and pulling it somewhat closer to the blond. Eddie was another thing that kept him together, kept him knowing that he was alive and not just a satellite lost in space. In the dark. In...nothing. He sometimes forgot how important Eddie was, another thing he reminded himself of.

Eddie had to be the one to tell Seamus that Ashley was gone, no one else had the bravery. Eddie had also been the one to help set up the searches, the games of hide and seek where Seamus always lost. At first he searched places that seemed possible, asked around, checking for any clues or suspects. But, with time, his obsession got ahold of him, instead of abiding by the rules or facts, Seamus just...looked. Over and over, in places, behind places, crowded areas, some abandoned or deserted. Warrants or not, he just fell apart while trying to find the pieces of himself.

He only stayed stable for the pieces that were still there. That ring. His daughter. His friend.

"It was pretty cold last night, eh?" Eddie tried to pass conversation, usually his personality would be excited or giddy, but he silenced it for the fact of his hurting friend. It was almost as if he were a cop twenty four, seven. Seamus looked up to his friend, smiling lightly at the company, happy for it. At least he still had someone to talk to.

"It was, the worst it's been all year. Supposed to get even colder next week." Seamus replied, Eddie removing his jacket meanwhile. Seamus nearly shivered at the thought, it was meant to drop to the twenties, thirty eight at the highest. He hoped Ashley would be okay...he couldn't deal with her out of his care...

"Hey, how's Stef doing?" Eddie wondered, opening a drawer on his desk and pulling out a file. Eddie smiled, he cared about Seamus' family, even more since the family was now only the remains of one. A mother who was gone, a father who was broken, and a daughter having to grow up under such conditions. Eddie only wanted to help.

Seamus' eyes glanced over to that photo again, pushing away tears as he looked over his daughter's face. "She's been holding up well, I'm proud of her. She's doing great in school, she's smart, she gets that from Ash." Seamus answered, feeling his light smile become lighter, barely just a tug at his lips. "She's doing much better than I thought she would. I'm glad."

Eddie looked up from his file, sighing quietly. "I'm glad she's okay. She's a tough kid. That's something she gets from you." The two shared a humble laugh, Eddie seeing his Seamus' eyes that he loved his daughter. Ever since she had been born, and even before that, Seamus had always been there to care for Stefani and Ash. He did all in his power to tend to them, they were always first on his list.

Even when Seamus wasn't okay, like he has been for past twenty two days, they were still his number one priorities.

"What about with you? Everything okay?" Eddie wondered, he hated asking Seamus this. He already knew the answer, the both of them did. And Seamus denied it, although, by now, everyone could see.

"I'm fine, you don't have to keep asking, Eddie." Seamus attempted, but the bags under his eyes worried Eddie, he wasn't fine. He was tired. He was hurting. He was lost, in pain, struggling to cope, to keep going, to help himself, help others, help Stefani, help Ash. Seeing Seamus in this state made Eddie feel guilty, he was beating himself up over this, it wasn't his fault for what happened. He was putting himself through hell, sleepless nights, agonizing days, hours and hours during each of blame.

Blame for her disappearance. Blame for her assumed death. Blame for not finding her alive.

Dead. Alive.

Even Eddie pondered it.

"You know I'm just concerned, Sea." Eddie reminded him, giving the other soft eyes.

"And I told you I was fine." Seamus retorted back, harshly was the way Eddie took it, he knew Seamus hadn't mean to, it was normal for those dealing with stress, but Eddie took it to the heart. He looked down, away from Seamus and back to the file on his desk, a hit and run case with the only clue of the vehicle being a black sedan. He heard Seamus sigh, more guilt piling on top of him. "I-I'm sorry, Ed. I..."

I'm sorry Ed, I haven't been sleeping well lately, stress keeps me awake, and so do the nightmares of my life. And when I wake up, I really don't, because my life is a nightmare. My wife has been kidnapped, my daughter is growing up without one, and I'm falling apart left and right. I can't work, I can't eat, I can't sleep without worrying about her or Stefani or even myself. The future is just as scary as the past, but the present can't compare, it doesn't compare. It's too much.

Help me.

That's what he didn't say.

"I'm sorry." Is all he really did. Is all he ever did. All he ever was. Sorry. For Stefani, to Stefani. For Eddie, to Eddie. For Ash. To Ash. Himself...he just couldn't.

"It...it's okay, Seamus." Eddie responded, it wasn't the first time Seamus had lost his temper momentarily. It was just the stress, Eddie told himself, seeing Seamus run his lengthy fingers through his blond hair, letting in a cold breath, incubating it in his lungs, and sent out a warm puff back into the crisp air. The stress, he thought again, the stress.

Eddie's words rang in Seamus' ears, tolling like a bell, tolling not for whom, but for thee. 'It's okay' they echoed, echoed, faded. Again and again, in circles. Circles like Stefani's questions, like his own search. Searches. Pathetic attempts of closure. Circles. His own footsteps in the snow leading up to himself, not a blood trail, but it sure as hell should've been one.

Because everything wasn't okay.

It isn't okay.

Ash was either dead or alive.

Seamus was either dead or alive.

And in a case as such, who should live versus who will live terrorized his thoughts.


	2. Beer and Crying

January 27th.

It was a Tuesday. Colder, just like the forecast had predicted. Forty seven degrees, snow expected to arrive by the end of the week, perhaps before.

Day twenty three.

Night twenty three.

Seamus shivered as he entered his heated house from work, the winter temperatures dropping by the day. Snow still lingered on the ground from their last snow storm, possibly even the last before that. It wasn't cold enough to snow again just yet, but some flurries sprinkled the sky like the stars, a beautiful scenery to gaze upon. But Seamus didn't look up, only down, down at the snow crunching under the weight of him, breathing in that smell of fresh, seasonal air.

But, he still looked down instead of around at the beautiful world surrounding him.

Crumbling around him.

Beautiful to others, a disaster to him.

A game to him.

Hell for her.

A mystery to Stefani.

For Seamus...he would prefer any of those. A game, Hell, a mystery. But, things shouldn't be so easy for him, no. His pain was labeled as 'unknown'. He was unknown, he was unknown. Her whereabouts were unknown, and there was a possibility that they could be left that way. His condition was unknown, was he dead or was he alive? Dead or alive? Dead or alive? He wished he could remind himself, but you need an answer to do that. The future was unknown.

The future for him. For her. For Stefani. For himself.

Would there even be a future? Would the killer ever be caught? God how he hated calling him a killer...it meant Ashley was... Would the mask be lifted of him? Would Ashley ever be found? Dead? Alive? Dead or alive? Dead or alive? Would Stefani be able to move on? Learn? Understand? As if she already doesn't... Would he? Would he be able to do it, move on? He didn't know. It was unknown.

Circles.

His questions ran in circles, chasing their tails. Stefani's questions.

Circles.

Another swallow of saliva coated his throat as he placed his jacket away, letting the high temperature of his humble abode wrap him in its warmth. He craned his neck, he had slept on it last night, a mistake he wouldn't make again. Until he would. He let his feet lead the way, following the voices he heard from the living room, smiling lightly at the familiarity of them as he neared the room.

Therein lies another reminder for himself, another important person. Another that held him together, a face he saw day to day, yet he had to remember that they were there.

"Hi, daddy!" His daughter lit up as she saw her father enter the room, she sat up from sitting on her knees to run and greet him as she always would, with a hug. He appreciated every single one of them, fearing that each one could be his last. Fearing that something might happen to him, her, the both of them. He wasn't sure of what, just something. Something bad. Something that would stop him from hugging her one last time.

He held her a little closer.

"Howdy, sheriff." The other voice joked as he opened his eyes to his reminder, another piece of his puzzle, a wall for support as his building was falling. He smiled at the joke, at her, as he let Stefani go, but her staying nearby as she knew of her father's fear. Letting her go.

"Oh, if only." He responded to the voice, standing up from his crouched position of Stefani's height. He couldn't imagine what his world would be like without Liz, she was a guardian of Stefani when himself was at work, and a friend to the both of them, to Seamus a sister in law, Stefani an aunt. Liz was Ashley's sister, a three year difference between the two. She had been close with their family and even before they were, always lending a hand to help her own lonely life.

Liz had been married a while back to a man named Brandon, Seamus remembered. The wedding was beautiful, Liz looked beautiful, Ashley looked beautiful... They had a child together, Zachary, but things didn't work out so smoothly. When Zachary was six, Brandon and Liz divorced. She only got to see her son every other holiday due to how far apart the former couple lived from one another after the separation.

The separation really took its toll on Liz.

She couldn't stand the loneliness, an empty house to herself, no husband to chat with, sleep next to, cook for, with, watch tv alongside, love. She had no son to play games with, make him laugh, help him in school, take care of, tend to. But, she still loved, no matter how many times she saw him per month. Per year. He was twelve now, she had just spent Christmas with him a month back.

A month back. The loneliness was still there. Six years ago. The loneliness was still there.

Twenty three days ago.

The loneliness...

She was there for Seamus when the news was leaked about what had happened to Ash, the news affecting him far worse than her. She was devastated, of course, but she could still...function. She could still tell the difference between the living and the dead and which she was. There was no confusion, there was no unknown. Just loneliness thriving for an answer. A cure.

A husband, a son, a sister.

A family.

She grew closer to Seamus and Stefani, that hand she lent, that hand she held out was held back, held onto by a desperate man needing to know what life meant anymore. Since...it meant nothing without Ash. But, it still meant something at all. With Stefani. With Eddie. With Liz. The whole is better than the sum of its parts, but the parts will make due. For if not...Seamus would know which he is.

Dead or alive.

The answer would be so easy if it weren't for them.

Helping them was how Liz coped with her lonesome life, being a mother and a makeshift wife, as she told herself. Filling Ash's shoes as she was...out there...somewhere...with a beating heart or not. Stefani wasn't Zach, but it felt good to see the seven year old grow up each day, not just missing the important events of childhood and catching up once or twice a year. It was a second chance at being a parent, and Liz sought the opportunity with determination in her heart.

And she knew that she was that one card in Seamus' deck, for if it were to be removed, the whole house would come tumbling down. She didn't plan on moving. Seamus didn't fall. They shared a small smile from across the living room, both knowing that themselves and seeing the other agree with their eyes, his blue, her's brown.

Just like her sister...

"How was everything today?" Seamus wondered, asking the same question as he always did when arriving home, a blunt word of what he was really arriving back to. A bitter excuse for a family, a home, a life. Bitter as the alcohol he reluctantly drank at times to forget about such a family, a home, a life. He wasn't an alcoholic, he just needed an aid every now and again. To forget. But, in the end, he'd always remember. Reminders of his life that he kept telling himself about, his daughter, his friend, his sister in law.

His wife...

That's when he'd drink.

It wasn't so much alcohol, just a few beers to put him to sleep, just enough to be able to still taste it in the morning. He wasn't one for drinking, but he guessed people change, move on from who they used to be. Move on...it's what's best...how would your daughter think of you if she saw you like this...? Drinking so you can sleep? So you can live?

Die?

Whenever he did drink, he'd always hide it from Stefani to the best of his ability. Yet, hiding who you truly are, how you truly are, is easier said than done. Stefani knew how bad her father was, and how bad he could get. How bad he would get. She saw him drink, one beer bottle, two beer bottles, three. Three is what always did it, what lulled him sleep. In his bed, on the couch, at the kitchen table. That's how he got to sleep.

Beer. And crying.

Some drunks are angry, some funny, some tired or paranoid. Seamus was a sad drunk, he'd always try to push away the solemnity of reality, but it always seeped through, he swallowed it along with the foam of his drink. He'd cry about a number of things, trying to keep it low for his daughter. Trying, trying...it didn't work. It'd wake her up, keep her up, she'd creep out of her room, peeking her head inside of her father's to see him curled on the floor, head in his hands, crying.

She wanted to comfort him, but she knew she had to remain a lurker in the shadows, seeing all, but telling none. She knew it'd kill her father if she ever saw him this way, struggling. Stefani deserved a good childhood, no matter how much everything hurt.

But, she hurt, too.

Another way Seamus didn't want Stefani to feel.

"Everything was fun!" Stefani exclaimed, taking her seat again across from Liz at the the coffee table. Fun, her word repeated in Seamus' head, fun. It calmed him, knowing his charade held up for another day. Or so he thought... "Liz and I colored when I got home, and we out in the snow for a little bit, and I got a hundred on my spelling quiz!" He was delighted to see his daughter full of life, something he felt little to no in himself. She was innocent to the world around her, and Seamus wished she could stay that way.

But, she would grow up sometime. She already had.

At the age of seven.

"And then she thought doing a thousand piece puzzle was a good idea." Liz joked, gesturing to all the pieces laying across the glass coffee table. "We're never going to get this done." Stefani giggled at that, Seamus smiling at the both of them. This might have been the closest thing to family, and as much as he should be, he wasn't used to it.

Twenty three days wasn't long enough to get used to such a life. Twenty three days represented how long it had been since his old one.

"Liz, are you staying for dinner tonight?" Seamus wondered, adjusting his thick framed glasses. She looked up at the sound of her name, taking a glance at Seamus' eyes, his own loneliness present within them. Ashley's absence, the absence of a wife who he needed ever so much. And her own absence of a family entirely helped her to understand that he wasn't asking out of politeness, he just needed someone here. With him.

Here. Not out there.

Here.

"If you don't mind, dinner sounds pretty good." She answered, seeing the stress weighing in on his eyes disperse for now. She was amazed at what effect she had on him, just a simple agreement changing his whole world. How small it may have been.

"I'll set a plate for one more." He told her, guiding himself to the kitchen as he spoke. He felt himself smile lightly, an unfamiliar feeling at the least. Life would always feel lonely, it was lonely, people, places and things can't hide their condition anymore than they can deny it. Their as strong as their weakest link. Seamus' life was painful without Ash, he had made a vow to stick with her until the end of their days.

But, it was her that broke it.

Not by her own doing.

And it left life lonely. But, there was something in setting down that third plate that made it somewhat less. It was almost as if Ash were coming home any second, that plate and chair waiting for her. Stefani waiting to see her mom. Seamus waiting to see his wife.

Then he felt it again.

Another heart with his. That sense of hope, that's what hope felt like to him. A heart, a heart that belonged to her. And it was beating, his impression that she was still alive, still able to breathe, blink, bleed. His hope.

That's what kept him going.

To find her. To find that old life again.

To find himself again.

Because all he was anymore was an empty vessel filled with fear, alcohol, and a bitten back amount of tears and bile.

And the unknown.

He bit it all back again as he pulled out a pot from one of his lower shelves, listening on the background noise of the house. He was pleased about it, no matter what it could have been, something other than his heartbeat, his beating heart, that pumped and pumped, the usual background noise of his day to day life. The ticking of his timer, each thump-thump questioning why it ever did that. Why it worked, how could it work?

How could life possibly go on, his life go on, without a reason for that heart to pump?

It couldn't.

Each pump of his heart was a cry.

His background noise.

Yet, it was overlapped now, stifled by metaphorical warm arms, calming it down before the agony settled back in. Those warm arms were the noises, the sounds that his ears heard other than what he had been hearing, taking in through all the senses: the bad. The bad things in life, so many there were. The multiple apologies from others, the news stories reporting the event over and over in different words, ways. The headache of trying to find where Ash had gone, who had taken her, to where, when, why, how?

Yellow flashed before his eyes, the caution tape surrounding the place she had last been. No evidence of any sort, he thought he could've dealt with some, a little, good or bad, signs of a struggle, a fingerprint, a hair, a shoe print, blood. At this point, blood would have been at least a sign to see. To keep going, or let go. The good is what let go, the bad holding on.

The bad won.

The evil won.

Death...with her was uncertain. With him...he was the walking definition of it.

He sucked in a long breath, not letting black clouds of the past cover him up, he shook his head, bringing him back from such a world, back into a warm home with his aching heart at ease for now. For now, he just listened in on the conversation from the living room, giggles, jokes, small snipits from various topics. Stefani's voice, Liz's voice.

She sounded so much like Ash...

When the sound from the other room faded, another took it's place, more background noise, one not as uplifting, but it still did better than the hurting of the inside. The tv was on, left on by accident, or just something to listen to for the elder and her niece. It wasn't on anything special, just another news program reporting the daily scoops with a straight face and almost monotone voice.

Or...maybe that was just him...

His ear dipped into the anchorman's words, listening in for a little while as he prepared for dinner.

"...repairs will be made on the bridge as soon as possible." He concluded his last statement as Seamus turned the burner on. "In other news, nineteen year old, Kevin McFarlane has been pronounced missing today, his disappearance taking place approximately between eight and eleven of last night. The college student was last seen entering his dorm room, no one has seen or heard from the boy since."

Seamus focused on the screen, he had remembered hearing about that case around the office, it wasn't his, of course.

He was already dealing with a case as such.

"Police have said that this has been the seventh disappearance within the area in the last month and a half, investigators are still trying to see if these rumored 'abductions' are somehow linked." That's when he shut it off, he couldn't stand to listen to it anymore. As if there wasn't enough pain in this world...imagine if Stefani had heard the tv...imagine if she had been the one on tv... 

He placed down the remote, shunning such an idea from his mind as he continued cooking, trying to keep his mind on the voices of his family.

A bitter word. A bitter excuse.

Time became a blur after that, an illusion as it should be, as it is. Life was like that at times to Seamus, a wondrous lapse between this moment and that moment, what happened in between would be a forgetful gap, his mind too far gone to remember anything. His eyes blinked, it hurting, almost as if they hadn't blinked in forever. Or, maybe it wasn't closing them that hurt, maybe it was opening them.

He didn't know.

He didn't want to know.

He turned the burner off, twisting the knob until the flame met its end, still hearing some commotion lead from the living room a few feet away. "Liz, Stef, dinner's ready." It felt odd rolling Liz's name off of his tongue, in that context of course. He had wanted to say her name, two syllables and as beautiful as sunset, a name that fit her well, her name described her. Ashley. He wanted to say her name.

Liz's didn't seem right, sound right.

She was family, but not that family, that type. A wife. She used to be, but not his. A wife, the mother of his child. She wasn't.

It didn't seem right.

Sound right.

"How'd you guys make on the puzzle?" Seamus teased, setting down the cooling pots on the table, Stefani taking a seat and smiling at the smell of spaghetti and meatballs. Liz chuckled as she took a seat at the head of the table, sharing a small smirk with her brother in law.

"If ten pieces in half an hour is a definition for 'great', then great!" She teased, Seamus kindly laughing as Stefani held back a few chuckles of her own. Half an hour...it was only half an hour I missed...when I was out there...somewhere...

He wasn't sure where he went, his mind just wandered from time to time, places he didn't know, but allowed. And he felt himself fall there again. He looked at Liz and Stefani from afar, afar as an outsider to them. To his own daughter, he felt. If he could call his family one thing, it'd be distant.

Bitter and distant.

Two things that could describe his family. Two things that could describe him.

Destroy him.

It felt like he fell away from his daughter, too far, what was he to her anymore? He didn't feel like very much of a father anymore, yet a father to what, this didn't feel like a family anymore. He watched his daughter grow from a distance, only being an audience of her childhood, not being the one to help it along. That stopped twenty three days ago, him holding her hand as she experienced every waking moment.

It felt like his hand was barely there. As if..he let go...maybe it wasn't so hard after all...

Then there was another hand Stefani held onto instead, one to the closest thing to a mother, a real parent. Liz. Liz's hand. She was the one helping Stefani grow, and it triggered envy to arise within the detective, seeing his daughter bond more with her than himself. He had fallen away that much, faded away that much. A shadow watching over her, casting over her, a ghost seeping into the real world to see how it changed.

Drastically.

He missed how it was before, he was forgetting how it was before with each painful day he took a breath. It faded along with him, himself lost in the past, who he was today wasn't himself. Just a reflection, a shadow, a corpse with his face...falling...fading...

Before the tears had a chance to roll, he was jolted back into reality, the vibration from his phone indicating that someone was trying to get through to him. Barely anyone could anymore. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the device as he studied the screen for a minute. Work. Another thing that kept him fading.

That's all he did day to day, work. Leave his house to do a job he couldn't do right anymore. That one thing, that one case, that one person threw it all out of balance. Him. Partially her. He couldn't work on another case without fixating on hers, feeling guilt towards hers, worrying about hers, just her. He couldn't set hers aside, he couldn't leave it open, he couldn't close it. Missing person reports can stay open for years on end, families desperate to find the victim, the killer.

Themselves.

He was already suffering the stages of grief. He didn't want to end up worse. He was already fading from life entirely. And to sink to a level below that...

...he could only imagine what was in store.

He placed the phone to his ear as he entered the other half of the kitchen, not wanting Liz or Stefani to become concerned about the conversation he was having. When work called, it was almost never good. "This is O'Doherty." He answered, hearing the other voice on the line to be Eddie's.

"Seamus?" He started, his voice somewhat shaky, a bit of hidden secret within it, a hidden secret Seamus was left in awe with. He would either find out and have his mind exposed to such a reality, or be left in the dark, which he had had enough of.

He wanted a light. A life. A wife.

"Ed? What's going on?" Seamus wondered, the care in his voice doubling over at the thought of Eddie in any sort of stress or pain. Eddie played a large role in his life, so did Ashley. With her gone, life was tough, and he couldn't deal another loss or struggle.

So soon.

"They need you down here. We're at the park across from ivy and new. Can you make it?" Eddie's voice spoke rather quickly, the signal between the two being rather poor. Seamus looked over at Liz and Stef at the kitchen table, pondering Eddie's last statement. He hadn't wanted to disappear from the family anymore than he had, but his job needed him.

Dilemmas.

They always split his head in two.

"Y-Yeah, I'll...I'll be down there as soon as I can." He reluctantly agreed, holding back a sigh as a headache was starting to form, the anxiety coming about in his system, believing he made the wrong choice. Yet again. "What's this about, what's going on there?" Seamus questioned, background noise being replaced by the hiccups his heart erupted, tick, tick, tick, as he heard it.

What a day to be alive...

"I-I, uh...I...I can't explain, you'll need to see for yourself." Eddie stuttered, his voice seeming more frail as he spoke on. "Just, please, hurry. This is all starting to freak me out." He hung up at that, placing the phone back in his pocket, hearing Eddie's worried words repeat and repeat in his memory bank.

Just another case..., Seamus' conscience whispered in his ear, it's just another case...

"Who was that?" Liz questioned once seeing Seamus place his phone away. Seamus was startled by her voice, reality seeming a dream as he faded in and out of it. He turned back around, catching her gaze, her eyes almost the same hue as her sister's, he hadn't realized it before. Now, it stood out everytime he caught a glimpse of her face.

He sighed lightly. "It was work, they need to me to come to a scene for a little while." He told her, his words leaving the hint behind that he had to leave. Liz caught it. Stefani...understood. Liz nodded, passing off a light smile to let Seamus know it was alright. She could see that he had wanted to stay, in his body language, words, eyes. But, he had a job to do, whether he wanted to or not.

By doing his job, it felt like it was making up the fact about Ash. Yet, by not doing it, it relieved stress and added some. It let him relax for a while. Then his mind would wander, coming to conclusions that not doing his job got him into his own mess.

He beat himself up. And instead of dusting himself off, he just walked on with the battle scars.

"I'll try to be home before ten. You don't mind watching Stef for a little longer do you?" Seamus wondered, feeling goosebumps arise on his skin by the thought of returning to the coldness outside.

Liz shook her head coolly, keeping her smile bright. "Not at all, Seamus. You go do what you need to do, we'll be okay." She told him, trying to keep him steady. She knew the littlest things could set him off anymore, and she also knew he was learning to control it. For Stefani. For himself.

"I'll be seeing you later." He kissed Stefani's cheek, a sendoff for the road as he made his way back to the door, pulling on his jacket that only held up slightly against the chilled weather.

In that half an hour, it felt like the night had gotten colder.

His mind raced with ideas, pacing back and forth with what his team needed him for, what they were dragging him to. Under any other circumstance, they would've left him be, another case of any sort was the last thing he needed. But, what circumstance was brought up this time that they needed to dial his number? What could it have been? Did it concern him? Involve him? Or, did they just need another skillful mind? Another pair of eyes?

A heart to toy with?

He started the engine to his car, his headache beginning to consume him, wishing he could just lay down for the night, his daughter next to him as she told him about her day. He'd read to her sometimes, at times where he wasn't a hopeless mess, feeling invisible with alcohol being the cause for his hurting mind. But, tonight wasn't one where alcohol was needed, tonight was peaceful, which was a relief from all the others.

He just wanted to relax.

His head pounded on.

He couldn't stop thinking as he drove his way to the location Eddie directed, ivy and new, ivy and new. What could be there? Why did they need him? Over and over his mind twisted into knots, most of them permanent. He couldn't concentrate, one leading to the other, just another question, no answers in sight, no light.

No life.

No wife.

...wife...

His eyes widened by the thought, the reminder, the memory. He dreaded for it not to be true, but he couldn't think of any other reason why. Why they needed him. Why they called. Why Eddie sounded the way he did. His mind swelled with anxiety, it felt like it was choking his heart, choking him.

What if they found her?

Twenty three days and nights of searching, what if they found her? Was she okay? Was she injured? Was she bleeding? What happened to her? Was she stable? Suffering? Scared? Scarred? Was she even alive? He felt tears flood his eyes again, drowning his vision with worry, he felt numb all over, his mind questioning on, leading to questions he didn't want know the answers to.

Was she dead?

He felt the air seep out of his lungs, punctured holes allowed him to no longer breathe. Could she? He turned a right, not even feeling the hum of the engine or the bumps along with road he drove along. It was all just a haze, a shadowy, feelingless, terrifying haze, a fog to cover up what he refused to see, what he refused to see might have been her body. Bruised. Beaten. Bloody.

...lifeless...

His hands gripped the steering wheel as hard as he could, knuckles white, hands trembling, his nails carving lightly into the leather of it. He could possibly be on his way to his wife's grave, her tomb, the last thing he'd remember her of. Not a beautiful woman with a smile that could cure anything. Just another dead body with a blood trail and a killer on the loose.

He hated calling him a killer...

He sucked in a sharp breath, feeling his trembles turn into jitters, him nearly shaking entirely as he knew he was nearing that intersection, that park, that...possible catacomb. His headache traveled to the sides and behind his eyes, he always succumbed to a migraine when handling stress, ironically enough, stress was what his occupation was powered by.

Except it was never this much...never this much...

His heart was barely beating by the time he pulled up to the caution tape, flashing lights, and policemen surrounding the scene. His people. Her? He didn't attempt to calm himself before exiting the vehicle, deep breaths and repeated words only helped the ears, not the mind. His mind that pulsated with every movement. He flinched himself at the sound of his own car door shutting, feeling on edge towards everything, everyone.

His feet left behind prints in the thin layer of snow on the ground, a blood trail of his own, as he found it. He blew out another breath, a ghost coming and going in a matter of seconds, born and dying as another took it's place. He was breathing. A sign of the living walking among dead. His hands found the depths of his pockets, retrieving his badge as he flashed it towards the other cops, a nod of approval from the serious faces.

Tired, serious faces.

Faces he mirrored.

His pained eyes searched around where the commotion lie, his gaze soon striking the wandering eyes of his partner. Eddie took in a breath once finding the other detective, a ghost taken in, not let out to possess any others. Their distance grew closer, Seamus' jaw felt almost too stiff to speak, the hinge frozen shut. Due to the cold or perhaps out of fear.

Both were the same, weren't they?

"Ed, what the hell is going on?" Seamus heard himself mutter, studying the distressed expression of the other. Lines were written on his forehead, his eyebrows tense and furrowed, a sign of either confusion or sympathy. Seamus wished for neither. Eddie's eyes wore a thin layer of fear, as shallow as Seamus' heart, his mouth slightly agape, needing to find words, but only turning his throat raw as he breathed.

"I don't even know, Seamus." Was all his partner could say before gesturing for him to follow, both shaking due to low temperatures, Eddie slightly out of sheer horror, Seamus out of worry. It can't be her...no, no, this can't be how we find her...days upon days of searching for her alive...and her body is just dumped...dead?

He closed his eyes for a brief minute before reopening them, each step he took drew him closer to what he had been called here for, a step closer to the possible shattering of his life. He had wanted to find her for so long, so much time set aside just to find her. He didn't want to find her now, as much as it would end his obsession in a way, he wished for the ending to be happy. Though life always isn't, it was better than death.

Wasn't it?

"Why did you call me here?" Seamus asked as Eddie came to a halt, needing to know the answers. He couldn't stand the silence anymore, absence of a life worth missing.

Needing.

He needed answers.

"I didn't." Eddie gravely stated, staring straight ahead. "That did." His head nodded off towards something in the nearby distance, his tone uneasy. Seamus stole a last glance at Eddie, his face cold and dazed, a dream he wanted this to be, they both did, but dreams are only nightmares. Nightmares are only reality. He took a step ahead of the dark haired one, the ground crunching under his shoes. His eyes followed the direction his partner's, traveling roads through informants and detectives, up a yellow brick road of police tape sectioning something off.

That's when he saw it.

And he needed a closer look.

He stepped up to the tape, ducking underneath of it without a second guess or tic of hesitation. He knelt down in front of it, pulling a flashlight out of his jacket pocket, holding it like a pencil in his ice cold hand. He shined the light, staring down in complete awe, curious, yet startled. Extremely startled as he appeared to stop breathing, his heart giving out as he was just...there...staring...at it...

A hand.

A human hand.

It lain palm up to the air, an evidence card number 1 next to it, the cold air taking affect to the flesh on the object. He shuddered when looking at it, not believing his worn down eyes. All he could do was stare. Read. Read the bloody carving on the hand, the skin torn and scarred to write a message.

He stared.

He read.

"They deserved it, Detective O'Doherty"

A message for him.

Eddie didn't call him down here.

That did as his eyes read it over and over, it not helping his swirling mind.

It wasn't Ashley at the scene. But, it sure as hell should've been.


	3. Can You Help Me?

He knew he should be working, he kept telling himself that he was. He didn't believe himself, war raging in his mind. There's a job that needs to be done, a job you need to do. Aren't I already doing it?

You didn't then.

What makes you think you can do it now?

He sighed, back aching in more places than one, his head racing on the same path, over and over, again and again. He thought sleep would help his tensed mind, it did most of the time, but last night it didn't. Because he didn't sleep, he couldn't after what he saw, after what he read, the words carving into his eyes, under his eyes as that was all he saw when he closed them. Even for a second to blink.

"They deserved it, Detective O'Doherty"

He leaned forward in his seat, eyes wide open as a he sucked in a breath, it felt no different than taking one from outside. It was cold, both inside and out. He was cold, both inside and out. His hand lingered on the mouse of his computer, knowing he needed to escape that page, but his mind prevented him. His eyes refused to look away.

He should be working.

Wasn't he?

Her hair, her eyes, her cheeks smile, teeth. Her lashes, her dimples, her light complexion, her soft lips, pink, perfect. He almost felt like a stalker himself, inside the mind of his own criminal. He looked over her face, beautiful, pleasant, unaware of any terrible future to come across her path, his path, and tear the two apart.

So far apart, that he only way he could see her was on a photo.

That photo on her missing persons report.

Name, Ashley Beth O'Doherty. Age, thirty two. Height, 5"8, weight, 134 pounds, eyes, brown, hair, brown. Date missing, January 4th, 2016. If you know the whereabouts of this person, please contact this number, with a number listed below. They just fed you the basics, no one would pay attention to a lookout so bland, only the ones who knew the true details of her disappearance would really care.

They didn't tell you what was needed to know.

Ashley Beth O'Doherty, wife of Seamus O'Doherty, mother of Stefani O'Doherty. Missing for over three weeks, not a single lead or clue found in any premise. Without her being found, her husband and daughter struggle, struggle to just wake up in the morning, struggle to cope with the absence of her around, her scent starting to fade, the memory of her voice being lost, her importance to the family was still there, but barely. The struggle.

She's unknown anymore, another unknown pushing against the back of Seamus' mind. Her position lost to the world, her condition was questionable, rendering Seamus speechless when thinking the worst. Her current state left him in pain, bewildered on the answer, frightened of the answer. Was air still flowing in and out of her lungs, or was the air starting to eat away her flesh?

The struggle.

That's what the people didn't know, people that weren't his. They just let their eyes dance over the words, not really reading between the lines to know that this woman was missing with a family who needed her back. He could tell that story in a thousand and one different ways, either to himself or to others. But, the ending, the ending that Seamus desperately made, was always the same.

Can you help me?

"I wish I could..." He murmured to himself, answering the text above Ashley's picture and the information given about her. Can you help me? in red letters caught his attention, asking a question he had to turn down. He had tried answering it before, doing all he could to say 'yes, I can', but she was still out there, still asking that question. Either her lips did, or her dead body begged. Begged to be laid to rest.

Rest. One thing couldn't.

He opened a second file and placed it beside hers on his monitor, the only other thing helping her case along. Even if it was barely, square one was where it started and remained to this day. He had pulled up a map, the areas surrounding Littleton within a twenty mile radius. Englewood, Parker, Lakewood, Broomfield. Places he searched.

Places he searched again.

And again.

They were all checked off, the places he searched for her, either with high hopes, or just waiting for that blood trail to begin. There was no such luck, everywhere he looked, she wasn't there, it was a sick and twisted game of hide and seek. Ashley wasn't hiding behind the closet door or underneath the bed, she was hiding in a spot she hadn't even chosen, in fact, it wasn't her Seamus was playing with.

It was him.

He was the one playing his game, searching up and down for his wife, worrying about her every waking moment and every sleeping hour. He had hidden her and finding her seemed next to impossible, but he couldn't give up. Because, if he did, Ash just wouldn't come out of hiding, laughing and claiming her victory. Because it wasn't a game. It was a matter of life and death, finding her alive mattered as much as finding her dead. He couldn't just quit.

For if he did, he would laugh, claiming his victory.

He took down Seamus' queen.

Checkmate.

He looked down from the screen, it wasn't the light hurting his eyes, it was just the pain from day to day life. Seeing her face only brought regret anymore, regret of not being there when he was needed, regret of leading a life to spiral out of control, regret on not finding her soon enough. Pain was all he felt. He closed his eyes, sighing as his hand caught his head, his long fingers running through unkempt hair.

That's when he saw it again, read it again.

"They deserved it, Detective O'Doherty"

A million questions formed in his head by just those simple five words, two of which were his name. Ash was all he had on his mind. That hand was all he had on his mind. What? What did they deserve? What did they do? What happened to them? What was going to happen to them? To him? How? How did they know his name? How long have they waited to see this play out? How did they deserve what? How did they leave such a message without getting caught?

When? When was the hand dropped? When was it found? When will he ever get an answer for anything? Where? Where will they strike next? Where were they hiding, just watching from their own vantage point? Why? Why did they deserve it? Why him? Why target him? Why a hand? Why such a message? Why now? Why not then? Why at all?

Who?

Who left it? Who deserved it?

Who on the face of the Earth found Seamus as a target?

The throbbing of his mind started up again.

He irritatedly sighed, the questions swarmed left and right, out of the way for his aching head, that was the only thing on his mind. Pain was all he could focus on anymore. But it was about time that he focused on others instead of his own. He let out a weak sigh as he placed his hand back on his mouse, it shaking somewhat as he reluctantly pulled down her files, out of sight, out of mind.

Out of time...

He pulled up another file, the newest of findings under his department. The newest of the strain. The newest member of the family.

James Wilson.

Twenty five, resident of Littleton, his lived not so far from Seamus himself. His only living family was his mother, he bunked with a roommate in an apartment building, rent was reasonable. He worked as an intern at the channel 47 news company about twenty minutes out of his way, paid well, well liked. Smart. Funny. Appreciated.

Missing for over two weeks.

Last seen as a hand in the middle of Chatfield State Park a day ago.

James Wilson. That was who he was identified as by forensics before his hand was bagged for evidence, placed in a box in the freezer compartment of the workplace. Once, a humble, innocent human being. Now, just a limb that was removed antemortem. Just a case file taking up space on his computer, his desk, his mind.

Just another life taken from a cold, cruel world.

Seamus read over the information again and again of what police had found about James, again, nothing, but a vague description on who he truly was, just the basics of a life short lived. He was going to twenty six in June. Seamus' blue eyes scanned and scanned again, the more he read, the more he understood, the more he realized what value was held within those words.

James Wilson, young, intelligent, trying his best in the world, as unfair as it may seem. Cared for his friends, loved his mother, didn't take too much for granted. Walking back to his car once his shift had ended of retrieving coffees for news anchors, making sure audio and visuals were intact, sharing a laugh or two when the cameras weren't rolling.

It was around eight at night.

The last anyone would ever see of James.

His place of abduction was unknown. Unknown, unknown, Seamus' mind muttered, why couldn't all the facts just be right there? It could have been in the parking garage as equally as right outside of the studio. The only facts that lain was that James didn't make it home that night, or even to his car that night, it being left in the parking lot for two days after when it was discovered by fellow coworkers of his.

No one had seen James for three weeks after the happening.

Details within his time taken and time found were shadowy, not known amongst the detectives either bustling back and forth, or the ones that just stayed behind a desk. That was Seamus. No one knew what happened to James during that duration of twenty one days, but Seamus greeted what he called 'the obvious'. It being that James died a cruel death, suffering sickening amounts of pain before finally bleeding out and taking his last breath.

James Wilson.

Twenty five. Missing.

Dead.

A picture of the man was placed beside his information, both on the online file, and the one placed in his lap, the photo paper clipped to the unsettlingly thin folder. He was handsome, Seamus contemplated, letting his eyes do the walking and the talking. Curly, black hair, a beard of the same color, finely trimmed, Seamus expounded. He was perhaps just a few inches taller than myself, tan skin, possibly of descent from Puerto Rico, he guessed.

Large, brown eyes, he did have a nice smile, dimples being formed, Seamus heard himself giggle lightly, Stefani had dimples herself, how they made him smile when she did...

He never wanted to see his daughter more than right at that moment.

His eyes fell down the page, rising back up to the second, words becoming blurs as he read on, as much as the words had meaning to him, he kept thinking back to those five others. The words in front of him were about James. The ones in the back of his mind weren't. And as much as he wished they meant nothing, they meant something.

Everything had meaning to him, even the smallest or angering of things.

His brain repeated the same tangent of questions as it did before, circling and circling, hurting and hurting. This was how his mind worked, repeating the questions he owned until one could lead to an answer, asking himself that question over and over again, thinking of an outcome, a reply, a solution.

It wouldn't always work that way on it's own. Most times, he'd force it.

Force himself.

For her.

Do it for her...

Why James of all people? He was well liked, seemed friendly, had a good life ahead of him. No one deserved the deadline of death, but why did James deserve to have his earlier than needed? Why in such cruel way? He had done nothing to deserve such a fate, no one ever could, even those who stain their soul with blood. Killers.

His killer.

Even he didn't deserve such death.

Why James?

Why not?

He was innocent, he did nothing wrong in his life to end up as a body on the loose.

Then maybe he's not your problem.

Is there something about the killer?

When isn't there? They come from all sorts of fucked up places, homes, shacks, holes in the ground. Of course there's something wrong with him.

What could he want?

It's possible he knew the killer.

What connection? Friends? Family? Did he work with him? Was there a past relationship?

Possibilities, possibilities. Here's another to ponder, perhaps he just watched from a distance, they didn't know each other, one just watched its prey.

But, here we are at square one, what did James do in order for his killer to strike?

Don't think of it that way, think of what the killer has done or thought to strike.

Perhaps he had plotted this for a while. Maybe there was a motive, money, love, anger, just another enemy to bite the dust. Maybe this just all for attention, for the killer to feel somewhat unstoppable, to have his fifteen minutes of fame.

Yet...why blame the killer?

How's that?

On the hand, it did state that it was their fault, they deserved it.

They...

Oh god...please don't tell me there's more out there...

There was a sudden shortage of oxygen meeting his lungs, the possibility that there were most likely more out there stunned him. Ever since his own personal experience of 'death', it was always more fearful to him, the topic of death. He wasn't sure if he could do his job anymore, death sickening him to the stomach, he knew how much it hurt, how much it could hurt, and wouldn't wish for that pain on anyone.

One dead body he could barely deal with.

Two, he would need a breather.

Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven...

He hadn't noticed he had stopped breathing until his lungs burned, taking in a deep breath hurt them even more.

He groaned lightly while placing the file onto his desk, closing it as well as his eyes. He took breath after breath to calm his nerves, only once in his life had he gotten to a point like that, so light in the head and weak in the legs, heavy on the stomach and tired in the eyes. He hated that feeling, the feeling when he went numb, reality fell out of the distance and it was just him, suffering in an unfamiliar place.

Work was an unfamiliar place.

Home was an unfamiliar place.

He let go of a final breath before bravely opening his eyes, he hated doing such an action. Opening up blue orbs to a world that was set ablaze, ashes floating, gloating, the scent of suffocating smoke in the air, structures of buildings left to collapse like his heart, it could barely pump anymore, but bleed it shall. Bleeding wasn't a problem anymore, it was all he did, bleed, the passion in his heart bleeding out with it.

Bleeding out like the man in front of him, his blue eyes opening up to brown ones. Ones he knew, but didn't, a video screen separated the two. Not only a video screen, the opposites of life and death. Though Seamus felt like one, he was undeniably the other, and for those brown eyes, he wished he could say the same. He stared into the eyes of James Wilson. Eyes he wished he could see blink, but they remained open.

A soul neglected to be put to rest.

Can you help me?

"I wish I could..."

"Seamus."

He jolted at his name, the world being restored around him, bit by bit as if it were in the process of loading. He peeled his eyes away from those of brown, ones that pleaded for his help, for the old him to return and save him, but the old Seamus had gone, and all knew that he would never come back. He wasn't dead, he was just...there. His eyes found another pair of brown, but these ones blinked. They could read the distressed expression in Seamus'.

And they reacted to the sight.

"Eddie." Seamus spoke his name, sighing as he realized he was safe. A feeling that was scarce during times such as now. "What's going on?" He wondered, minimizing James' page for the moment, another case left untouched to clutter his mind.

Eddie opened his mouth to speak, his eyes wandering behind Seamus before he had a chance to get a word out. "That's what." He directed Seamus to look behind him, gesturing his head to the commotion happening in the world Seamus barely lived in anymore. He cocked his head to the right of him, his eyes meeting the ongoing situation first hand.

Two officers were walking into their department office, one of the left of something, the other on the right, both holding something in the middle. The handcuffs of a third, a man stood in between the two, his head dipped down, but Seamus could still make out his features. His hair was a light brown, somewhat long, messy, but still taken care of better than his own. His eyes were a blue alike his own, perhaps even the same shade, if that were possible.

And just like all eyes, those of the man hid something.

His lungs moved with each breath, each step the three of them made, to where, Seamus could only guess. "He was identified as Jordan Mathewson." Seamus listened in to Eddie's commentary, his Latin accent somewhat thick, but understandable. "Forensics found his print on the hand we found two nights ago, turns out our little killer wasn't so clean after all." Seamus caught a last glance of Jordan's face, the two catching a glance from across the room.

Just by a stare, Seamus' soul seemed to freeze even more.

"Police found him at his house, almost as if he was waiting for them to take him away. Psycho." Eddie muttered under his breath, Seamus turning his head back to his partner. "They looked up a background check on him, nothing. No past crime, prison sentences, not even a parking ticket. No living relatives," he placed down a folder of Jordan's information in front of the tired eyed blond, "no relationship currently, no kids. Thank god.

"Nothing, but an accidental finger print." Eddie finished as Seamus scanned over the new information. Those blue eyes of Jordan never seemed to let go, the cold stare they gave left him uncomfortable. Even ones in a picture from the past. He scanned over the words listed that Eddie had just spoke, getting a less opinionated background of the criminal in cuffs.

Every now and again, his eyes flicked back to the other's, blue as a winter's night. Cold as one. Bitter, crisp, icy. There was millions of ways to describe those eyes, millions of way to describe him. Except for one, one was questionable, one was assumable, he would assume as so, but assumptions left no room for facts.

"Is he guilty?"

Seamus aimed his head up to Eddie's again, he could already read the answer in his eyes. "There was no evidence at his house, but during the trip over here, he confessed to it all, the sick motherfucker. He seemed proud of himself when the hand was brought up, it's like he got an A on his homework." Eddie sighed, sucking in a light breath through his teeth.

"Wait...," Seamus mumbled, piecing things together in his mind, "if he's guilty, why was he brought down here? He should be in jail, waiting for his court date." He brought up, his brain beating against his skull.

"That's the problem." Eddie began, taking a seat on the corner of Seamus' desk. "There can't be a court date without more evidence against him." He paused. "He's the only one who knows where the bodies are."

He felt sick to his stomach.

"B...Bodies?" Seamus clarified, feeling a sharp pain inflict his heart. He had been too late again, more lives were cost as the Earth rotated around the days and nights. He had wasted his time yet again, doing his job poorly, and due to that, innocent people had lost their lives to pure evil, an evil placed within eyes of ice. He pinned their deaths on himself, although, it was apparently their faults.

"They deserved it..."

He felt Eddie slip another folder into his shaking hands, one he hadn't even noticed, one he was afraid to look into. He swallowed a lump in his throat, one caused by a combination of fear, guilt, and the emptiness inside of him growing larger. "Those seven abductions we all heard about over the past month? All victims of 'God's Right Hand Man'."

...abductions...past month...victims...

Seamus opened the folder, his anxiety increasing my the second, stress controlling his every thought, action, and word. Oh god, oh god, please, please don't let me see her name, her picture, please god, I'm begging you, please don't let it be, please, don't let it be this way, don't let it end this way..., his mind rambled on and on as he searched through the contents of the folder, preparing for the worst.

Daniel Gidlow...Dexter Manning...James Wilson...

...Kevin McFarlane...where had he heard that name before...?

His eyes began to water slightly, relieved for each name he stumbled across to not be his wife's, but fearing that the next one might. He couldn't control himself anymore, life was tearing him limb from limb, he was out of control, and something else was. His obsession, his depression, his hope, he had no idea. All he could do was sit back and watch as he broke down bit by bit.

And Eddie couldn't watch it for much longer.

"Seamus..." He whispered, placing a hand on Seamus' shoulder lightly, catching his attention instead of him off guard. Seamus looked up from the papers, there was one more he hadn't looked at, thinking that Eddie stopped him before he read it, read it like he did that hand, read it and let reality sink him down to the lowest of depths, let him finally be drowned by those high tides.

Just let it be, let it be that way, let it end that way.

Eddie sighed at the tears falling from his friend's eyes, understanding the amount of pain he suffered daily. Hourly. With each minute. What he felt in his heart, his mind, his life anymore was more pain than anyone should ever have to experience. Eddie saw that, and he was there for that, seeing the hurt and trying to fix it. He knew what Seamus was looking for in those files, and he didn't know which one would be better, finding it or not.

There was no better.

"Seamus, it's not her." He whispered to his friend, keeping his hand kn the other's shoulder. Seamus took a breath at that, calming down slightly, regaining what was left of his self control. "It's not her, Seamus. It's okay, I thought that, too. He didn't get her." He reassured as Seamus dipped his head.

Just because he didn't get her doesn't mean she's alive.

Doesn't mean she's dead either, you know.

Know? Know what? Everything's unknown anymore, herself more than I.

Unknown.

Seamus looked back towards the files again, clearing up his tears with his free hand as he examined the last of the papers, thinking it to be her's. To his luck, it wasn't.

Yeah...just his luck...

Aleksandr Marchant, it read, the last of the seven victims, one of the last to go missing. One of the many that haven't been found. One last breath is what calmed Seamus down for now as he placed the papers back into the folder, closing it as he held in on his lap, the tremors in his hand had dispersed for now. His moment had passed, the concern of his personal life not interfering with his work anymore than it already has.

It let his mind function again instead of drowning in tears.

Or being numbed by beer.

"Why are you showing me this?" Seamus wondered, sniffling lightly as he found enough strength to look at Eddie in the eye, as much as it killed the both of them. It pained Eddie to see his friend in this condition, and Seamus could see what effect he had on him by the sympathy in his eyes.

Scraps.

Their friendship was being held together by scraps.

"Captain Moss said...it's our new case." Eddie told him the news lightly, unsure of how Seamus would take it. If he even would. "Are you...are you ready to do something like this?" He wondered, concerned about his partner. He hadn't had a true case in almost three weeks, and to suddenly throw him in the middle of one like the one ongoing in his life?

"You okay with this?"

Seamus wet his lips as he nodded his head, agreeing on taking the case without a word. He hadn't fully moved on from the last one, but at times he thought he never would. He didn't have anything to help him let go, not even anything to help him pry off. He wanted closure for his life, and the only way that seemed possible was by focusing on something else, something he didn't want to call more important, but had to.

Leave her case be and move onto another.

"This case is our responsibility now, and I know you'll fight your damned hardest to get the answers we need." Eddie told his friend, standing up from his so called seat. "You're a good detective, Sea. Let's see him again." He clapped his shoulder gently as he began to walk away, Seamus still fighting the remains of his tears. He let his eyes follow Eddie's path as he took step after step towards the interrogation rooms, presumably the one hosting that pair of algific eyes.

The eyes that knew who he was. Not just the eyes, but the mind.

The mind of his own criminal.

He slowly stood up from his chair, stretching out his back, hissing at the sting shot at his spine and coursing throughout his body. He let out a sigh as he began filling in the footsteps after Eddie, mentally preparing himself for the case that lay ahead. He had to be strong, stronger than death itself, stronger than he had been over the last twenty five days, stronger than the unsettling stare of those eyes.

For her.

Do it for her.

He felt his heart swell in his chest by thinking that, moving onto this case for her. Every night, in the past, he came home safely, Ashley would hold him for hours. His job was dangerous, the two not knowing the last time they'd see each other. When she saw him walk through that door, she knew another day he would live, she'd wrap her arms around him, kiss his cheek, sit by him, ask him how his day was, be ever so proud of her husband and how successful he was in his field.

Everytime he'd close a case, the three of them would have a celebratory dinner.

And when he'd move onto the next, the fear came back.

He'd always think of her when it came to his safety, always promising he'd return home. Except, it was her that wouldn't. She always came first in his mind, and now she was one of his cases, missing, unsure if she were to ever be found. He always thought of her when it came to any case, and if she were still alive, he'd know she'd be thinking of Seamus saving her from this hellish reality.

But he couldn't.

He let her down. He let Stefani down.

And he didn't think he could get any lower.

He shoved away tears in the corners of his eyes, nearing the room with each step he made, telling himself that he needed to be strong.

He felt guilty, but he had to do it for her.

Yeah, saving others instead of her...that's what she'd want...

He bit his tongue as he entered the room, trying to appear calm on the inside, while in the inside he was screaming for help. And everytime he did, he always heard it in her voice. His head was pounding, heart was racing, stomach knotted itself, and his eyes were drowning, but he couldn't let that show. He was in pain, and as much as it should make him stronger, he only felt weaker.

It felt like he hadn't done this in forever, making his way towards an offender to confront him. In other words, his job. He couldn't hear anything, the world being too silent, so silent you wouldn't hear that pin drop. His vision faded every now and again, but it focused on what was needed, the first being Eddie.

He stood in front on the two-way mirror, his gaze taking place inside before seeing his partner enter the room. The two linked eyes, Eddie giving a soft nod to let him know everything was fine. There was nothing to be afraid of, to Eddie, to Seamus, everything was terrifying about what he was doing. He was going to stare into the eyes of a taker of life.

Everything was fine.

Seamus let his eyes guide him to the door, his hand holding the doorknob for a second before twisting it, his nervous hand leaving a temporary residue of sweat on the metal handle. He took a step in, the room being heated a bit more than the offices outside, he almost smiled at the warmth. Yet, he restrained it as he quickly remembered where he was, why he was, and with whom he was with.

The other in the room.

A skull with tantalizing eyes.

He shut the door behind him, knowing he had the eyes of Eddie watching over him, there to help him if needed. He spoke no words nor made direct eye contact with the light brunet, in all honesty, afraid of him. Death was something that worried him to say the least, but those that make it happen were at the top of the list. Ones that can take away life with the simplicity of their hands was horrific, and here Seamus had been dealing with them for thirteen years.

Dealing. Not really comprehending.

He took a seat in the metal chair directed for him, the silence lingering in his ears as it was beginning to become painful, just like everything else in his world. Painful. He adjusted himself comfortably, leaning back against the rest, his arms lain on his side of the chilled table. He dared himself to look up, look up into those eyes that knew him.

Look into that mind.

That mind...

His eyes raised up from his shaking hands, the only thing he couldn't control, but wasn't so obvious to anyone else, just himself. They met a level with the other pair, both of their eyes holding something the other couldn't know, Seamus' hurt, Jordan's...he didn't know. It looked similar to his own, but the smirk on his face ran his emotion in the other direction.

Seamus didn't speak, only let his eyes study the face in front of him, the last face all those victims lost their lives to, the last face they saw before their eyes closed a last time, or they were left open for more misery to be present. For them. For him...Jordan looked like he held no remorse. Just that smirk on his smooth face.

Seamus held in a grimace.

"I know." Jordan spoke, his voice even and low as Seamus only looked at him sternly. "How can you bear to look at me?" Jordan's smirk grew into a smile, it was light, but intimidating to Seamus. "I'm a killer, I don't deserve anyone's ears to speak to." He nearly read Seamus' mind, but he kept his expression solemn, not letting Jordan win round one so soon.

"So stereotypical of everyone, they always blame the murderer, never the victims." He snickered lightly, shaking his head while his eyes fell down, then climbed back up in the way of Seamus'. "The victims are only innocent, it's never their fault. Never." Seamus felt the strain kick in on keeping his cold stare, he wasn't about to let the other win power over him, Seamus admitted he was weak, but there was still time to prove himself wrong.

He did it with her.

But, look where it got him...

"What are you saying?" Seamus found enough stability to finally speak, Jordan smiling at his response before opening his mouth, that rough voice about to be heard again, he smiled as if Seamus had just fallen right into his trap.

"I'm saying that they deserved it, Detective O'Doherty."


	4. Date Book Of Before

He had never felt so threatened by a pair of blue eyes.

Even behind that piece of glass, he felt in danger. Seamus stared into the room which hosted Jordan Mathewson, his fear out of control on the inside, but on the outside, it didn't dare show. At least, not here. Not now. His eyes were locked with those on the inside and it seemed like Jordan knew, he couldn't see the other, but he could sense him. Overpower him.

Scare him.

Seamus stared ahead at eyes of azure blue, straight into the caves of the killer's questionable soul. Jordan kept his gaze locked as well, he didn't appear to move at all, his eyes not needing to blink, his lungs not needing to breath. Signs that triggered Seamus to wonder if Jordan was dead or alive. He had spent somewhat over ten minutes in that room with Jordan, his confession then being silenced now.

Those ten minutes drew them no further into the case, Jordan not even speaking of the acts he committed, only smiling when they were brought up, or staring down at the watch on right wrist. He gave no answers to the questions Seamus demanded, why did you do it, why a hand of all messages, why did they deserve it, why, why, why.

Where are the bodies, Jordan?

He smiled.

He looked down at his watch for the thirtieth time.

The reluctance of Jordan forced Seamus to storm out of the room, sighing again and again to keep himself calm, he knew, too, the smallest of things could set him off. He didn't want to explode, at least not here. Not. Now. He broke his gaze from the criminal on the other side of the wall, hanging his head as he huffed a breath, steadying his nerves, trying to return to the great detective everyone used to know.

He took another breath.

It felt impossible.

Impossible to return to who he truly was, his personality in the past just fading to black and white. Along with his life. The events of the past just made today look more somber, more broken, shards of glass haunting him, pricking him, watching him bleed for the woman he loved. Still determined to find her with a beating heart, still determined to find her alive. To return to his old life, the life that was nothing, but a dream on the other side of the pillow.

That's all his mind wandered in, the past, never the present, definitely not the future. To think of how times were then, how much he wanted them to be like that now, how much they could've been like that now if he had only stayed with her. But, instead, cold eyes swept her away into the fog, cold eyes like Jordan's.

Maybe even colder.

His mind was like a date book, looking over the good times of before, before his life took a turn for the worst, before he was afraid to move onto another case, before Ashley ever became one. His mind was a date book of before.

October 2nd, 2003.

The day his life changed, the first time his life changed, he should say. The day he met her, the age of nineteen, before when she was just that girl on that bus he took to the training academy for his future. The first day, he hadn't noticed her too well, thinking that her face was one he'd probably never see again. Just another of the billions of people roaming the globe.

But, then he saw her again another day, her face standing out to him, she was there, same seat on a different morning. He sat two behind her on the opposite side, he could only see half of her face, but he could tell she was around his age and beautiful. She got off at what looked like a studio, just a few blocks away from his academy.

Maybe this wasn't the last time he'd see her.

He saw her again. And again. Simple strangers on the bus at first, but, somehow, they had gotten used to each other. He'd smile at her when he'd arrive on the bus, she'd return with the same expression, it was closed mouthed at first, but then grew to toothy. That's when he realized her smile was beautiful, too. And her eyes when he met them. And her features were cute...and her hair was loveable...

He saw her again. He smiled again. She smiled again, it had become almost morning routine. There were some days she wasn't on, those days he missed greeting the reason for his good mornings. Other times, he wasn't on, he was sick, the academy was closed, he was just being his lazy self. And on those days, without his knowledge, she missed seeing his kind face.

All of those days meant something to him, but just like her face, October 2nd stood out.

The day he finally met her.

The bus was crowded that day, he remembered, for what reason, he didn't know, but his usual seat had been taken along with all the others in the vicinity, some people standing. There were only a few seats left available, one being right next to her. She looked up as the doors opened, the five foot six boy stepping on, she was the first to smile at him. He smiled in return as he always politely did, but that morning was more memorable than her perfect teeth.

"Uh...hi, uh, do you mind if I sit here?" He asked, gesturing to the empty seat with her bag on top. She looked over to him, the first time he had actually spoken to her over that month of shy smiles and acknowledging nods. She lifted her bag from the seat, placing it at her feet as she gestured to the free chair, her eyes looking back up to his blue ones.

"Not at all, go ahead." She answered, smiling again at him as he took the seat. Her voice was also beautiful, Seamus thought to himself as he thanked her, little did he know, she was having similar thoughts about him. The two were quiet a moment, nothing, but the sound of radio music playing over top of the cars revving outside and the whistling of the wind on that chilly autumn day.

He heard her giggle lightly, another thing he...loved...

He didn't even know her name, and he was in love. Typical Seamus...

"What is it?" He wondered, smiling with enthusiasm as she timidly caught his gaze, trying to hide her smile under the long sleeve of her jacket overlapping her hand.

"I've seen you on this bus for well over a month, and throughout all that time, I don't even know a thing about." She snickered, it was almost as if she could read his open mind. "Where do you go when you get off? Where do you disappear to?" She joked, giving Seamus a little laugh this time.

He took in a small breath before answering. "Well, if you must know, every morning, including this one, I got to the police academy to see what I'm made of." He answered, his response making her smile grow a bit wider.

"Police academy, eh? You're going to become a cop?" She rhetorically wondered as the bus pulled to a stop, letting people on while dumping others off. The two young adults stayed put.

"Yeah, well, we'll see what the future holds." The two laughed at that.

He went on to become one of the best detectives on his department's team. Well...he thought he used to be...

"What about you, Marge Simpson?" He joked, referring to her dyed blue hair, his teases were ways of saying he liked something, her hair was something that caught his eye. And heart. "Where are you headed off to each morning?"

"My job, just like every other adult in this world." The bus started back up again, the vehicle filled with less people, yet was still crammed with passengers, similar and not. "I'm a photographer, my studio is down aways, I'd rather prefer working there than at home, it's too quiet." She dropped the hint of having no one at her house, no kids, no husband, no boyfriend.

She dropped the hint.

Seamus picked it up silently.

"I'd never take you as a photographer." Seamus admitted, smirking lightly as the girl shook her head, trying hard to hold back a smile, a light blush lighting up her cheeks.

"I'd never take you as a cop." She returned, brushing a piece of her hair behind her ear, her light blush almost fading before burning darker.

"Again, we'll see what the future holds." He repeated, aiming his head down before looking shyly at her, finding her to be the most amazing person he had ever come to know. We'll see what the future holds, indeed...

"I'm Seamus." He introduced himself, feeling himself blush a little, too.

She giggled. "I'm Ashley." She responded, taken aback by the man sitting next to her.

Ashley..., Seamus thought to himself, ...what a beautiful name for a beautiful girl...

May 23rd, 2005.

Another day he couldn't forget, a day that put him on the spot, but at the same time, in heaven. A day, today, that seemed so far in the distance, but he knew would creep up on him each woeful time he blinked his eyes. The day that was all his mind ever thought about, his lips ever spoke about, his eyes ever imagined and saw as he dreamt. That one day in the middle of spring, all sun, no showers as planned.

As they planned.

May 23rd was their anniversary, this year would make it nine years.

Nine years of watching themselves grow closer. Nine years of waking up together and sleeping beside each other. Nine years of half-awake breakfasts and sweetened cups of coffee, nine years of lunches shared at the table, eaten out, or accidentally missed, nine years of dinners out at diners, over friends houses, ones cooked by the both of them, shared at the table with random conversation. Romantic, frantic, scheduled, last minute.

They shared so many dinners...

Nine years of kissing each other when waking up, kissing each other goodbye, kissing each other when arriving home, and just before they rested their heads. Nine years of emotions hanging above their heads, the good times they spent laughing and holding each other. The bad times of fighting, screams and words flung back and forth. The rejoice in making amends. The nervous times when Ash wondered if Seamus would return home alive.

The peaceful times when he did.

The quiet times of just laying in each other's arms. The loving times they shared with one another. The lustful times they fell in love with.

Nine years of loving her.

Twenty five days of missing her.

He remembered their wedding whenever thinking of her, or everytime he looked down at his ring. It felt like it was yesterday, staring at himself in that mirror as he fixed his tie again and again, trying to make it perfect, fearing that it wasn't. That he wasn't. Usually it was the bride stressing over how she looked, Seamus snickering to himself at that. He wasn't the bride, but he felt like one.

He looked down to his watch again, he shook his head now, to think he ever wore a watch. Time kept passing before him, each moment blurring into the next, his hands jittering as he was excited, yet anxious for that final moment. Time sped by again as he was now standing at the end of that aisle, hands clasped each other as he held them in front of him.

He kept looking down at that watch...

Time seemed to be going too fast. But, when she entered, it slowed for the first time that day.

He felt so many things when seeing her, heard so many things, one of the most identifiable was his conscience reminding him of the first time he saw her two years ago. How time flies...what the future held... She still looked as beautiful as she did at nineteen, perhaps even more. Her hair had gone through many colors over those two years, blue, purple, red at one point.

But, for the wedding, she let it stay brown.

That was the color he loved the most on her.

Her brown eyes seemed to glisten as well as the glitter on her dress, she wasn't one for formal attire, but she looked amazing. Her dress fit her well, the traditional white, the skirt opening to the side, the back dragging like a trane behind her. She held a bouquet of flowers, red roses, Seamus holding a single rose in his lapel pocket. Her pink lips parted into a smile as she walked down that aisle, her cheeks just as rosy as his heart.

And her smile never faded throughout that ceremony. It only brightened when the I do's passed, and their lips met to finalize their marriage.

Do you promise to care for her, through sickness and in health, for better or worse, till death do you part?

I do.

But, death wasn't what separated them.

He hoped that it wasn't.

August 5th, 2008.

Another of the important dates in his book, one he could never forget.

It was late, an hour or so after Seamus arrived home from work, they had just finished dinner and a few kisses, deciding in taking the rest of the night easy. They were laying on their bed, not sleeping, just holding one another as they spoke to each other, or basked in the comforting silence of their love.

"How was your day?" She wondered, nuzzling her head against her husband's chest, sighing as she relaxed against his heartbeat. Still there, she thought to herself while smiling. Still here. She heard him take a breath before answering, his hand finding her's as he began playing with it, his thumb softly rubbing her palm, his fingers sliding through hers, he'd raise it to his lips, kissing it ever so often.

Times were so much easier back then...

"It was good, I suppose." He answered, melting at the passion flowing between the two. He kissed her hand again, kissing it on her wedding ring, showing how much she meant. "We dialed down the Watson Street Murder to three suspects, I'm sure we'll find the culprit soon." She chuckled at that as his other arm snaked around her waist, holding her closely.

"We were assigned a new one, a hit and run, but a witness remembered the license plate, so it will be pretty much open and shut." He continued, hearing the clock in the far hall ding, letting them know it was a new hour. "And the new intern spilled coffee all over Eddie's pants, whether it was accidental or purposefully, I'll have to look into that." Ash giggled at her husband's humor, he could make whatever situation better, bearable, no matter how somber it truly was.

Except for now...she was what kept him going...she still is...

He kissed her knuckles sweetly. "What about you? How has your day been?" He questioned, kissing the top of her head lightly as the seconds ticked on past them.

"Pretty well." She answered, looking up to see Seamus' blue eyes. "I finished putting together the album for that newlywed couple, the bride said she loved it." Seamus smiled at that, knowing how in love Ashley was with her job. She loved to take pictures, always had a camera on her, and if not, she was sorting through something she shot. Some were just a waste of film, as she put it, but most looked absolutely talented.

"In two days, I'm going to be going to the hospital to take pictures for Allison and Greg Young of their newborn. Adrianna, such a beautiful name." She snuggled against him further, feeling as close as possible, but wanting to get even closer. "And...I got some pretty good news. Not just for me, but for you." She told him, meeting his crystal eyes once again, smiling lightly.

"What is it?" Seamus wondered, matching her expression, gazing into her brown eyes for some sort of an answer.

She paused before revealing her words to the air. "When I got home today...I found out that...we're going to be parents."

Parents.

That meant Ash was...

Seamus felt himself begin to tear up, a father was something he had always wished to be, something more than any job. "Really?" He rhetorically asked, wiping away his tears, but not his smile. He laughed nervously at that fact that the news had brought him to tears, but Ash didn't mind. Seamus wasn't afraid to cry or show how he truly felt.

And to see how supportive he was of the baby made Ashley's world.

"That's so amazing, babe..." Seamus muttered, unable to control his tears, him giving up and allowing them to slide down his face. "That's...that's so great." She lifted herself off of his chest, sitting up as he leaned a bit more forward towards her. "How...how far along are you?" He wondered, feeling his hands jitter with joy.

She shrugged. "I'm not exactly sure, I made an appointment with the doctor tomorrow to check everything out. I might be two weeks, three weeks, I think." She answered, feeling light tears begin to swim in her eyes. She couldn't help, but smile along with her spouse, both in pleased shock of being parents. Seamus, mainly, as he couldn't control himself.

"I'll...I'll take off tomorrow if you'd like, and go with you." He suggested as Ash accepted, thanking him for his comfort and encouragement. Neither spoke a word after that, the two just looking at each other with eager eyes, the eager eyes of early parenthood they knew might fade with late night crying, refusal to eat, trying to get bath time ready, the hunger they craved every six seconds, it seemed.

But, it would be worth it.

Seamus and Ash were having a baby.

He leaned a bit closer to his wife, lightly placing his hand on her stomach before placing his lips on hers.

Seamus and Ash were having a baby...

He would always remember August 5th.

Her stomach wasn't that big at the time, the fact that she was pregnant was unnoticeable. But, that was just the start, the first day, week, month. With time, they saw what the future held after all. When it came with two months. Three. Five. Seven. Nine...

May 24th, 2009.

The day after their anniversary.

The day Stefani was born.

It wasn't just one day overall in his mind, it was one day every year, a time lapse in his datebook, seeing his daughter grow each day to each year. He remembered seeing her face for the first time, the face of her as an infant, a few seconds old, a few minutes old, a few hours, days. She had her mother's eyes, that was the first thing he noticed. Bright blue, at first, but with time, they faded to the luscious chocolate color that was Ashley's.

She was beautiful, always looking around with those large eyes of hers. They sparkled, Seamus saw, glistening like stars. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her as a baby, he couldn't keep her out of his arms. He was always there with her, for her, it sometimes bringing a tear to Ash's eye to see how good of a father he was. It was inspiring to be a parent to the both of them, and as much as rumors went around of painful parenthoods, raising Stefani went fairly smooth.

She got older and older, each May 24th celebrating such an event.

Her first birthday.

Her second birthday.

Her third. Her forth.

Fifth. Sixth.

Stefani was now seven.

Seamus was now desperately trying to find his old life.

Ashley was...gone.

January 4th, 2016.

The future Seamus didn't want to think about anymore.

He closed the date book in his mind as he opened another in front of him, a collection of files for the case of Jordan Mathewson, the victims he smiled about. New information within those words he had to collect, hints, clues, dates that would soon become imprinted in his mind, on his mind. Not only those, but names. The names chosen by their parents, only to mean nothing anymore, but reminders of a murder, their murder, and murderer.

James Wilson.

Seamus looked over the information again, keeping it fresh in his mind, creating a time line for himself and those dates of the others, other victims, other bodies, others he couldn't save, others that would wrack his mind and possess him, haunt him, create more despair for him. He could have saved them, somehow, someway, he could have saved them.

Now all he could do was keep the dates for the back of his mind to ponder.

December 14th, 2015.

The night James disappeared.

He placed the twenty-five year old's paper to the left, moving onto the next, one he just read the name of, he didn't really concentrate on who this person used to be, a person only few would know now. His eyes ran over the words, then walked over them, reading everything twice to somewhat meet the person fully, as if they were right in front of him, hand held out for Seamus to shake.

Whenever he did, his hand went right through theirs.

Aleksandr Marchant.

Age, twenty-three when he died, barely got to begin his life, barely got to live at all, his future for him being a cold case in which he was a victim. And not the only one. He was originally from Russia, moved here when he was eighteen, his life all over had been sad. His true parents had died when he was younger, car accident on an icy road, he had to be pulled out of school and let down with the news.

He was an orphan for sometime, passed around foster homes, not staying there for so long. He was finally adopted when he was twelve by Katjaa and Arthur Marchant, his name used to be Aleksandr Pankov, but with becoming a member of the family, he had to change it. Time had passed since then, Aleks grew up with a healthy, stable life afterwards, he was friendly, talented, one of the brightest there could be.

Last seen entering his house at around six thirty, two weeks ago.

Brown hair, brown eyes, not a rare combination, Seamus told himself as he studied Aleks' picture. Many may have seen his face throughout a point in a time, just another one passing through, a breath through the lungs, let go and forgotten, he was just a stranger, so why remember his face?

They wouldn't see that face again.

No one would see that face again.

His friends, his family, those strangers to him who found him the same.

Only the cops who could care less about one more dead body piled up. And as much as Seamus was sinking, he refused to become one of those people.

December 28th, 2015.

The night Aleks disappeared.

Another abduction took place only two days before that, in the mid morning of December 26th.

Joe Esten.

He never showed for his shift at the corner diner, he was a waiter, a job that may have been tedious, but those close to him said he loved it. The activity was unlike him, he was reliable, trustworthy, and honest. Somehow, those attributes were to get your life cut too short by the blade of Jordan Mathewson. Or the bullet. Or any numerous ways of torture and death.

No one knew how he killed them. They only knew that he did. And without a full confession or a dead body for evidence, their case would be hard to prove.

Friends and family of Joe called him outgoing, confident, wearing a smile to bring ones onto others. Just by seeing a picture of the man, Seamus could ultimately agree. His hair was somewhat long, swept to the side and out of his face, his smile bright, teeth shining, cheeks dimpled and pink. His eyebrows raised to show his enthusiasm, his eyes cheerful, optimistic, a slight shine either from the brightness be gave off, or the flash of the camera.

The morning of December 26th changed that.

He rearranged the dates in his mind, solving somewhat of his own puzzle if he couldn't solve the others. One of them being the case itself, one of them being Jordan, one of them being himself. The other individuals weren't so much as puzzles, just pieces that didn't fit. Perhaps to Jordan, but not to Seamus. Why these seven? What did they do to match a guilty profile? Sure, there might be speeding tickets or running a red light, but to go so far as to kill them?

Pieces of the puzzle that didn't fit.

He came across another. And another. His box was full of mystery pieces, and alone, they didn't lead to anything. Their only connection was Jordan, Jordan who had his lips sealed.

And had his watch ticking down the forty eight hours they were allowed to hold him.

He came across another.

And another.

Daniel Gidlow, the very first abducted over a month back, his specific date being the forth of December, making James ten days after that, then twelve in between his and Joe's, two later for Aleks...there were still pieces missing, Seamus could tell. Dan's abduction was the start of a reign, a reign of what, Seamus could only think about.

Worry for.

Dan was a very stoical person, there wasn't much to his bio or background, he wasn't relatively known like the others, quite sad to think of a passive soul like his just floating in life, disappearing without a trace, or a care in anyone. But Seamus cared. Dan was a person, a human being, he felt, he thought, he experienced, just like anyone else, everyone else.

But now Dan was gone.

There was no five eight, two-hundred and ten pound man anymore. There was no quietness, there was no timidity, there were no feelings from Dan at all, mainly because he couldn't feel anymore. There were no more feelings, no more thoughts, no more experiences. Like James, like Aleks, like Joe. Unlike the living, but like the dead.

And those who hovered in between.

Seamus who hovered in between.

He sighed.

December 17th.

Thirteen days after Dan, three after James, nine before Joe...

Dexter Manning.

Last seen: pulling out of his driveway, heading to his job.

Status: Presumably deceased.

Body: Undiscovered.

Missing...missing...

Seamus rubbed at his temple, trying to somehow find a connection between the victims, they must have somehow been some connection other than the obvious, they had to have been birds of a feather now matter how hidden or farfetched the connection appeared. Yet, the harder he looked into it all, the victims just seemed like practical strangers, unique beings, differing from everyone else.

Maybe that's what stood out?

But, that wasn't a reasonable basis to kill. Really, no basis is.

Dexter was twenty four, his birthday arriving in a short couple of months, he was planning a life ahead of him, excited for the twists and turns such an illuminating experience of life offered him. He wanted to make the best of everything, he wanted to start living for a reason. Dexter wanted to have a family with his wife of two years, Miranda.

Detectives had spoken with her the day after the print was found and connections were made. They had talked about a family for sometime, she told them, Dex being completely on board with the situation, he had always wanted to be a parent, and deep down in her heart, she knew she hoped to be one, too. They had tried before, but unfortunately, she miscarried, making things harder for the two.

Dex was supportive, although still in shock and pain, he tried to keep everything together and on a positive note. Miranda had stated that they took a break before trying again, the most reasonable thing to do, to let them breathe for a while before focusing on parenthood again. Weeks had passed, Dex always being at Miranda's side, he was the next best thing to a great father.

A great husband.

By the time they agreed that they should move past their loss and try again, Dex disappeared. He had kissed her that morning and headed off to work, he worked at the local library about ten minutes from their home. It wasn't the job Dex had dreamed of owning, but he didn't mind it all too much, and it paid him fairly well. He had a good life.

Up until the morning of December 17th.

And another life was destroyed on the afternoon of December 11th, six days prior.

To some, the same old story, the same old case.

To Seamus, a heartbreaking story, a terrifying case.

Twenty-two year old Spencer Lovell was last seen taking his dogs for a walk around the park, that same park that became the center of attention nearly three days back. On that night, he most likely would have been awakened by the sound of sirens and alarms, various chit chat and discussion, cameras flashing and clicking, and the sound of snow freezing and melting. He just lived across the street from the park, neighbors say he went their daily with his pets. He would have been awakened by those sounds.

Only, he wasn't.

He didn't live there anymore.

He didn't live anymore.

That was what Seamus was forced to think. Without a body, Jordan was as guilty as he was innocent.

Where are the bodies, Jordan...?

Kevin McFarlane.

Age, 19. College student at University of Colorado Denver, hoping to achieve a chance to become an engineer, he had the knowledge and skill set. He was hoping for a chance, he had a chance...just to have it stolen out from under him. Not only that chance, but the days he lived, the ones in the past, the ones he saw play past his very own eyes, the ones he hadn't gotten to experience in the future.

Stolen.

He had a chance...

He was doing quite well in the real world by himself, his grades remained above average, his teachers and lecturers found him incredible, his fellow peers appreciated him, he had a few girlfriends here and there. He could have possibly made a mark in the world. And he did. He appeared on tv screens nationwide, included in reports and breaking news, all for him, not because of something he made happen, but because something happened to him.

He went missing.

And now there's another story for newscasters to say.

He was dead.

The last date in his book.

December 21st, 2015.

The night Kevin disappeared.

Gone, without a trace. Just like all the others.

Except for one. Except for a fingerprint...

Seamus leveled his eyes back to Jordan's, staring at the one who didn't get away, his final act of disappearing like the rest failing as his wrists became cuffed. Yet...Seamus' mind reeled, studying Jordan's face as the killer's icy eyes were locked with the security camera, watching the red light blink in a repeated pattern. For such a skilled, interesting criminal, his getaway wasn't much of one.

On James' hand, there was only one fingerprint one it, on the back of the hand, a surprise, a present, a gift. Did he put it there on purpose for them to find him? Eddie had stated that he was at his home when he was under arrest, yet it had been two days since the print was received, if he wanted to fade away from the world's radar, he would've done it. Instead, they found him at a place that seemed to good to be true, too easy almost.

Maybe he was waiting...for what...for whom...

...Detective O'Doherty...

He placed the files back into the folder, watching the faces pass by his before they were covered, eyes of brown, gray, blue, hair long, short, blond, black, brown, some faces smiling, some blank, skin tan, light, pale. So many differences between the men, the only similarities led him no where. All men around the age of twenty.

To him, that meant nothing.

He wasn't even sure if it meant anything to Jordan either.

He held the folder in his hand as he breathed deeply and slowly, finding his way back inside of the interrogation room. Jordan's eyes darted over to Seamus at the sound of the door opening, his reflexes quick, perhaps a bit defensive. Jordan seemed to relax a little in his chair as Seamus stiffened, a bit reluctant with taking a seat once more, but doing so, doing it for her.

He wasn't even sure of why he thought that anymore...

"Have you had a moment?" Jordan questioned, folding his hands on top of the table, the slow action causing great discomfort in the detective. Seamus didn't reply, not knowing how to, but Jordan's question had been rhetorical as he moved past it without a second thought. "I apologize if you were to find me a bit threatening, I had no means in introducing myself to you in that way." Jordan spoke, his voice Seamus always feared to hear.

"I'm Jordan."

Jordan sat, awaiting a response, thumbs tapping against each other, eyes locked on Seamus, the texture of his eyes looking like cracks in a layer of ice, cold, bitter. Seamus wore his cracks in the inside, only allowing them to show when he felt as if he had no other options. Jordan wore his on his arm, he was in pain inside, reverting Seamus back to his belief that not even the cruelest of killers deserved death.

Because they, too, are in pain.

"Why should I introduce myself?" Seamus answered, watching Jordan's eyes blink, the water covering the cracks for a moment before seeping through them, making his eyes almost appear bluer. "You already know my name, you already know me." He could begin to feel the folder shake in his hands, although it wasn't the folder.

It was the hands holding it.

It was him.

"And your point?" Jordan conversed, thumbs staying still for a moment, freezing as well as his body again, even his dull heartbeat seemed to stop.

"I want to know how much."

Jordan had stated the truthful possibility before, Seamus did feel threatened by him, even more than standing behind that glass. Now, he sat directly in front of him, there was no barrier, no protection, Jordan could see him, study him, sense him, read him like a book and then some. Sure, he had some form of help, the cameras and the people watching, his coworkers, his friend, Eddie. But now, he felt alone, a fish in the ocean, facing a black eyed shark.

A blue eyed shark.

Jordan sighed, resting his back against the rest of his metal chair, his lips smirking lightly, yet doing a good job in hiding it with the mixed feelings in his eyes. Perhaps they weren't feelings. Perhaps...it was just smoke from the fire burning him from within. "You already know the answer to that." Jordan danced over the words, his thumbs going to work again, tap tap tapping against each other.

Seamus held back the urge to snap them.

"It's the same answer to how much you know about me. Now, tell me, Detective, what do you honestly know about me?" It was as if he was asking for the answer Seamus wanted to spit out. And instead of refraining or staying hesitant, Seamus fell right into, not a trap, but a plan.

"I know you're the reason seven lives are missing from this world, and you left that print on purpose." Seamus went for broke, but by the expression on Jordan's face, he hit gold. "You wanted them to find you, you wanted me to find you, it's all part of something you're dangling in front of all of our faces, mine especially." At least some things were clicking.

"And you're just sitting back, watching it all fall right into your hands." Seamus hadn't realized that during his tangent he had leaned forward somewhat, face narrowing in on Jordan's, hand pressed on the table to support him, anger boiling in his soul. He let go of a silent breath as he sat himself back down, keeping his gaze on the other.

Jordan smiled.

He looked down at his watch.

Then back to the thirty-five year old's eyes.

His smile broadened, but also became more snide.

"There's the detective everyone's missed..." He muttered before the room faded to silence, Jordan out of victory, Seamus out of his fear.

What exactly did he know...?


	5. Shadows

The silence was a constant in the conversation between the two men, Seamus finding Jordan as a murderer, himself as a monster. He wasn't who he used to be, and feeling himself crawl back into his former shell of a cop was unsettling. And back to a case such as Jordan's was enough for him to drink past those three beers every other night.

And to cry so many more tears on the carpet floor beside his lonely bed.

He could feel his nervousness die down, but the tension lingered as well as the beating of his heart in his ears, his ability to hear heightening, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump, blood flowing in his body. His hands no longer shook, but instead, sweat, one hand still clasped on the folder on his lap. His mouth didn't open, asking no question, which was what he was meant to do by sitting in that room.

And he felt goosebumps trail his skin each time those pale blue eyes stayed on his for a moment or so longer.

His lungs felt heavy as did his own eyes, it was harder to breathe, amazed that he still was, he blinked to keep himself awake, needing rest, bags beneath his eyes, a goodnight's sleep seemed impossible. Seamus kept glaring at Jordan's face, wondering if he knew. If he could read his face and know oh so much about the detective across from him.

See the lines on his forehead. The darkening circles below his orbs. The slight specks of gray beginning to bleed into his blond hair. The way he held back yawns, the apathy in his tone of voice and how it threw up a facade when speaking with his daughter, his sister, his friend. Even the slightest with a criminal. How is posture was poor. How his breathing was slow. How his badge and gun meant almost nothing, almost nothing compared to that ring.

Three places in that room Jordan's eyes moved to. Seamus', that camera, and that ring.

He smiled.

He looked down at his watch.

Habits.

"What is it like to be a detective?" Jordan wondered, his voice unnerving to Seamus as it played in his ears, he knew Jordan didn't ask the question because he honestly wanted to know. He wanted to toy with him, make it appear as if Jordan held the upper hand, he could manipulate anyone he wanted, starting with the weakest of the bunch. How Seamus saw himself. How Jordan saw him, too.

What exactly did he know...?

"Tell me, what is it like? Having this little job of yours?" Jordan rephrased and asked again, Seamus could hear Jordan's foot tapping at a constant time, once every four beats, the bottom of his shoe making a light echo in the room. "What does it feel like to walk in those door everyday, understanding your role in life? Do you feel powerful?"

Seamus' mind begged for him not to answer, but his lips parted, words filing out, filling the silence, words he had no control over, his mind had no control over. "Actually, no." He shook his head. "I don't feel powerful." He honestly answered, feeling himself fall further by admitting it aloud. He didn't feel powerful.

He didn't even feel in charge of his own life.

"Why is that?" Jordan questioned, his head cocking slightly as he spoke, his eye contact deepening with the other blue pair seated in front of him. His eyelids closed slowly before reopening, taking his time with blinking, breathing, living. Taking his time, he only had forty eight hours... "Isn't power something an officer of the law should possess?

"You've gotten a weapon, you've gotten a badge, you've gotten a force behind you." Jordan brought up, his eyes never breaking away. "Doesn't that, don't all, bring you to the near top of hierarchy or control?" Mind tricks...he's playing mind tricks...so why do you keep answering them, falling for them?

"Not really." Confiding in a criminal, that was what Seamus caught himself doing. Confiding in a criminal, not just a criminal, a killer. Not a friend, not a sister, not even his daughter. A man who has taken life and smiles down at the blood staining his delicate hands. A killer. A criminal. "Those things...they meant something at one point. Not anymore." Seamus' voice was deathly low.

"That badge, that gun, that team." He bit his lip as he paused, staring down at the silver shine of the table. "They don't mean much anymore. I keep telling myself that they do, but...I just can't see it." He rubbed at his eye under the lens of his glasses, he was blind to a majority of things in life nowadays.

"Answer me this...what do you see?" Jordan wondered, his partially chapped lips being tugged on with his teeth, slowly and slowly ripping off the flesh, it disappearing behind his lips. He did it again as he waited.

Seamus shook his head, following the trail Jordan's eyes made around the room, to the other pair of blue, to the security camera, to the golden band causing a tan line underneath of it. He couldn't stand to see that tan line. He couldn't stand to see that ring. "I see those symbols losing their shape." He murmured, feeling himself become unraveled. "Losing their meaning."

"What are they now?" Jordan asked, his eyes narrowing slightly, his hands folding again. "What have they been diminished to?" His eyes blinked slowly. They opened slowly.

Forty eight hours.

"Reminders."

"Of?"

Seamus' mind went on a tangent, swirling with ideas and made his mind double with an ache. "Pain." Seamus whispered, letting his eyes travel back up the the stranger's before him. "Regret." He continued, his heart smarting with each word rolling off of his tongue. "Hurt." He bit his lip before it had a chance to tremble.

"All I see are shadows." Seamus went on to say, feeling his goosebumps spread across his back, to his neck, to his arms, legs, heart. He shivered, unable to hold it back. "Shadows," he repeated, "things that used to be there, but...they don't mean anything." He heard his voice drop lower and lower, sinking as far as himself had over those twenty five days. "I'm not sure if they ever did." He added, resting his arms on the table as he stared at the shine of it again.

Confiding in a criminal...

Jordan took in such words, negative remarks on how Seamus saw things anymore, symbols that meant he world to others, a gift to some, treasure to a majority, barely anything to Seamus. That's how he saw his work life, empty, hollow, what did it even used to be? The words traveled around Jordan's brain, having a feeling it wasn't just those three symbols Seamus was acknowledging.

Jordan stared at that ring again.

Symbols losing their shape, indefinitely...

Seamus caught Jordan's stare, traveling alongside it until it met that ring, that ring he couldn't bear to take off, yet couldn't bear to keep on. Either break her heart, or his own, and after everything, a little more pain for himself wouldn't hurt, would it? His eyes flicked to Jordan's curious stare, something more in them, something Seamus wondered if Jordan already knew. What did he claim to know?

He removed his hands from the table, keeping the ring out of the limelight, knowing what Jordan was implying by looking down at that symbol. That symbol of marriage. What was it anymore? An anchor? A weight? A ball and chain? Seamus placed his hands in his lap as he left the folder on the table, the eye contact between the two returning for a dreaded forth time.

"You've been a detective for what? Going on...thirteen years?" Jordan purposely guessed, Seamus trying hard to show no signs of a threat from Jordan, if only he applauded, congratulations, he's done his homework. "It seems a bit too early for your career to be imploding, don't you think?" Jordan remained focused on the folder between the two, Seamus could sense that the killer knew what was on the inside.

As did all the others...

"I mean, twenty years, maybe. Thirty years, definitely. Yet, thirteen?" Jordan mumbled the words over in a different way, perhaps sending some sort of condescending message. "Are you saying you've found yourself in a rut? Criminal after criminal, case after case." Jordan explained, rolling his eyes during to explain further the repetitive factor.

Seamus sighed, unsure of why he was telling such a man any of this. "Not a rut...just...an impasse." He admitted, his ears sending the words to his mind, his mind who undoubtedly agreed. He was at an impasse, a dead end, the end of the line with no other way to go. Maybe it wasn't so much with his job, but with his unhappy life in general. He was stuck.

Stuck with the crumbling of himself.

Stuck with Stefani living life without a mother.

Stuck with a missing reason to live, the other half of his heart, the other half of that ring.

That ring that no longer held meaning.

His heart that no longer held meaning.

"An impasse?" Jordan clarified, his eyebrows raised at his answer. "Why is that?" He questioned, the tapping of his foot stopping momentarily, the room now emitting nothing, but cold, quiet breaths.

Maybe it's not his job...maybe it's...

Seamus kept his mouth closed, knowing where Jordan was trying to target. He didn't answer, he didn't want to put someone to blame on the impasse of his world, he didn't want to put her to blame. He didn't think it, he didn't say it. He turned his head away, staring at the door he entered from, wanting to leave. Leave this all behind and return to his house, his sister in law, his daughter, his case on finding his love.

How could Jordan force him to say something that wasn't true? That his own wife was the reason he fell apart. She wasn't, she just played a part in the downfall, she wasn't the reason. He had no one to blame, but himself. He let himself get this way, lying to all the others about how he was okay, yet on the inside, at home, he was dying. He needed to find her to be okay, and without her, he let himself drown.

She wasn't to blame.

He was.

He was...

Jordan let his eyes sweep away, knowing Seamus would swallow his words before they had a chance to reach the surface. He wouldn't speak of the reason his life was in such a terrible condition, he caught the direction Jordan was swerving. There's the detective... "Surely, not everything you see is meaningless."

His eyes ran circles around that ring again.

He nodded his head up, seeing Seamus turn his head back to the other, lips still sewed shut. "What do you see when you look at your badge?" He asked, his foot beginning to tap again. ONE, two, three, four, ONE, two, three four...

Seamus looked down at the badge hooked onto his pocket, another silver shine his eyes were drawn to. Private Investigator pressed on top and bottom of his badge, a role at first he was proud to claim. His number was in between the two words, badge number 2340. A number. He was just a number in the system.

What do you see...?

"I see an inmate number tattooed onto me in this game of life. " He replied, meeting the other's face.

He was just another number in the system.

"How about your friend?" Jordan continued, concentrating on his fingers lightly drumming on the tabletop. "Average height, dark haired, thick accent." He described him. "Edwin, I believe."

Seamus caught the hint.

Jordan knew Seamus like the back of his hand.

Unfortunately.

Seamus didn't respond for a moment, remembering Eddie was listening in, either from the camera footage, or from standing just behind that glass. He didn't look at either as he kept his gaze upon Jordan. "I see the despair in his eyes every time he tries to help me." He could picture the scene now, how his brown eyes fell soft, sympathetic, sad.

Wondering how his friend had gotten this way.

"The eyes seem to be something that draws the most attention for you." Jordan picked up, this was beginning to sound as if the table had been turned, Seamus was the one facing a time in prison whereas Jordan was the detective falling apart. He had the eyes... "What about your own? Your reflection? You? What do you see in you?" Jordan held a little spark in his eye, something that set Seamus off.

...the smallest of things...

"What the hell do you want from me?" Seamus pushed back, feeling his strength begin to return to him. It felt odd, being weak, but feeling strong. His body and mind were indecisive, it bringing him more pain than ever.

"What do I want? I think it's obvious." Jordan defended, his eyes turning innocent for a moment, the dark haze inside fading for a brief second. "I want an honest answer." He spoke, his words sounding convincing. "What do you see of yourself?" He reiterated, itching his jawline lightly.

Honest. He wanted an honest answer. Perhaps, just perhaps, if himself was honest, Jordan would be honest.

Where are the bodies...?

"Pieces." Seamus replied, staring directly into the irises of Jordan. "I'm not sure of what, I just know that they're of me. They are me." Seamus let his mind wander, speaking everything he thought, everything that pained him further. "Who I was...I just see pieces..." He repeated, feeling his heart twist.

Jordan nodded his head, a gesture to prove he understood. He took a breath before speaking, waiting a moment before his voice was heard again. "Is that what you see when you look at the ring on your finger?" Jordan wondered, question after question poured from his lips and mind. "Pieces?" He said again. "When you look at it, is there still a piece there? Or is it gone?"

Seamus didn't answer. Jordan aimed at that target again, sharpening his arrow before drawing the bow, piercing Seamus' weak spot again and again. With all of his strength, Seamus tried not to bring that weakness to the outside, if she wasn't the blame, she was the weak part of him. Perhaps not her, her disappearance was the weakness.

Her disappearance was to blame.

He was angered by Jordan's attempts, he wanted him to bring up the most painful event in his life. To bring up her, he knew about her, dangling her front of Seamus' face, about the fact that she was still out there, his heart unable to go on without her. And he knew. Stefani understood.... He knew about Seamus, he knew about Ashley. He knew everything of Seamus' disintegrating life, and what those ashes used to be.

He grew angrier.

Seamus didn't answer.

"What do you see when you look at your life?" Jordan continued, expecting all, but an answer from the detective. He smiled. His watch didn't need to be looked at. "What do you see when you close your eyes? When you open them?" Seamus bit the inside of his lip, trying, trying, trying to remain strong. Mind games... "What do you see when you look at your daughter?" Seamus balled his fist, his knuckles white, hand shaking, eyes blazing, but mouth remaining closed.

Jordan leaned forward, realizing that Seamus was bound to break, he might as well blow out the match before the world around them was set afire. "What do you see when you look into the eyes of someone like me?" He pushed, Seamus seeing the other's blue eyes deepen from a light blue to a hostile shade of cerulean, almost to where it appeared as of those eyes held no color.

"What do I see?" Seamus fought, his voice rough and uptight. "I see the reason I ever wanted this job." In the eyes of criminals, there still held some hope for his career. "I see how guilty they are, how guilty you are, and how much I want to see you pay for what you did to them." He took back what what he thought earlier, that no one deserves the punishment of death.

That they're all just human.

Jordan wasn't.

He appeared worse than death itself.

"I see anger in those types of eyes." Seamus growled, throughout his rant, he hadn't realized he had stood up, hands clinging onto both sides of the table, knuckles still as pale as his skin. His eyes were at level with Jordan's, his scowl fighting the other's smirk. "And in yours, I still see shadows."

He felt his hands slowly let go the table, his fingers aching as he took his seat, Jordan's eyes and smile watching him the whole time. He took a breath, trying to regain control of himself, feeling as if he were removing a knife from a wound, trying to be brave when his flesh was tearing, the pain coursing through his veins, the sensitivity tumbling around him. And the loss of blood only added onto the worry...the worry of possibly losing his life...

...as if he hadn't already...

He heard Jordan take his seat again, calmly and coolly, as if the dispute between them hadn't been so heated after all. Or perhaps, Jordan was just claiming another victory. He opened his eyes, ignoring the urge to close them for the rest of the day, the rest of eternity, he was just so tired. He forced himself to glare back up at Jordan, he couldn't stand him, yet at the same time, he still stayed in that room.

He couldn't bare to look at it...yet on his finger it remained...

Jordan swallowed lightly. "Would you...happen to have a cigarette?" He wondered, Seamus seeing Jordan's eyes go through stages of bipolarity, innocent to mean, understanding to scolding, lightest of blue to the darkest shade there could possibly be. Change is one of the glorious things in life...

He scanned Jordan another time as he unsurely opened his jacket, slipping a few fingers into the inner pocket and pulling out a pack of Marlboro Menthols 100's Mild. He wasn't too proud of having those in his pocket, unsure of why he even carried them around with him anymore. They felt like they didn't belong to him, he was wearing a stranger's coat, handing Jordan a stranger's cigarette.

He was that stranger.

He opened the box of cigarettes to find all, but one there, nineteen sticks of cancer and nicotine lined up evenly, the twentieth missing, but Seamus remembered where it ended up. He was desperate, it was one of the first days after the happening of Ash, he couldn't listen to the news, ears covered, eyes closed, tears unconcealed. To think he got worse...

He needed something to turn to to take care of the stress, something to lean on, to take in so breathing wouldn't be so agonizing. He bought a pack of cigarettes. Seamus wasn't a smoker, he had never placed such an item to his lips, or even held one between his finger, he knew the smell, but never the taste. The taste of what he hoped was relief.

He lit the end of it before he let his lips taste the bitter flavor of tobacco. He sucked a breath in, trying his first puff before nearly choking on the smoke, dropping the item and putting it out thereafter, the taste burned onto his tongue. He hadn't touched one since, his go to support now being one beer bottle, two beer bottles, three.

But support him, it didn't.

He lifted a stick from the carton, him fishing out a lighter with his other hand before handing both to the man in front of him, his voice low as he thanked him along with a nod. Jordan placed the cigarette in his mouth, lighting it as it dangled from his partial pink lips, this wasn't his first cigarette, but it may have been one of his last, Seamus figured.

Forty eight hours.

Or life in prison.

He placed the lighter back down onto the table, sliding it back towards Seamus as he drew a big inhale from the stick, the paper beginning to recede by the ring of glowing orange. He pulled the cigarette from his lips with his middle and pointer, his elbow resting against the table as it held the object lightly to the side.

Jordan turned his head as he blew out the breath, a puff of gray smoke wafting out into the air, Seamus could smell the pungent stench from his seat, his nose crinkling slightly at it. Jordan smiled placidly while closing his eyes, Seamus left unsure of how such a putrid creation could give millions around the world relaxation.

Jordan turned his head back towards the investigator, lids opening slowly to reveal those eyes. Those eyes that read...nothing. Shadows...all I see are shadows...symbols losing their shape...

"What about you?" Seamus spoke up, keeping his tone even, but slightly sharp. Pulling and pulling on that knife... "What is it like to be a criminal? To be known for murder?" He questioned, it was his turn to throw darts at the board, yet as he threw and threw, it didn't make him feel anymore of a cop.

Where did the old him go...?

Jordan smiled, waving his cigarette around before sucking in a breath when it met his parted lips, another cloud of smoke entering the atmosphere and room around them. Seamus held in a cough. "I find it...the same way you find being a detective." He answered, eyes falling away until they focused on the tan folder on the table. "Both are equally as painful, equally as stressful. Yet...at the same...rewarding." Jordan explained, Seamus could smell his tobacco coated breath from his seat.

"You do the dirty work to...," He rolled his hand, searching for the right words as his eyes went to another world, "...make the world a better place." He finished, licking his lips before placing that cigarette back to them.

"By killing?" Seamus retorted, not believing Jordan's words for a second.

Jordan aimed his head back to the other, there was something else being mixed into his eyes, his expression turning from calm to disgruntled. "It sounds so awful the way you put it, the way you all put." He flicked his eyes to the camera briefly, letting others know that it wasn't just Seamus he was addressing. "'He's a killer," he mocked the rest, "he's murdered people, there's something not right with him'." He scowled, gazes between the two men locked and secured.

"You don't see how I see, so don't put me down before yourself."

Jordan leaned back in his chair, a disgusted glare on his face, the cigarette halfway gone as he took a long draw, blowing it out slowly before tapping it, letting the gray ash flakes fall onto the ground. Those eyes changed their mood again, this time just seeming dull, and rather insulted. They appeared hurt almost at the way Seamus worded his question, he didn't like being called a killer.

He had a few weak spots himself.

Seamus swallowed, swallowing a hit of the bitter taste in the air as well. "How do you see it then?" Seamus returned, watching as more ash fell onto the floor below. "How do you see what you do?" He wondered, feeling his stomach churn as the sharp scent passed by him again.

Jordan took in a sharp breath as he thought up an answer, his fingers twiddling slightly with the cigarette, turning it left and right, leaving a mess on the floor below. A gray puff of smoke floated from the stick, Seamus wondering how Jordan could even breathe. If he needed to. "I see what I do as...a difference from myself and others." Jordan explained, Seamus finding it intriguing on how he put it, a difference, he didn't think of killing as his own sense of power and authority.

He saw it as it made him different from everyday people.

"They don't see what I do as I do." He muttered, fighting the urge to replace the cigarette to his lips as he continued talking to the detective. "They surely don't understand." He shook his head, smirking slightly at the thought. "It's what makes me different because I see, I understand." The mind works in mysterious ways...one of God's creations that we will never fully comprehend...

...I see...I understand...

"I do.

"And I'm looked down at for that." Jordan gave Seamus a cold stare, perhaps including him in the people who looked down at him. "For doing. I'm...treated differently. Because I take lives." He admitted, not the confession investigators needed, but perhaps revealing a trail leading up to that. "And they all misinterpret that, those lives deserved it, they deserved it, and they don't see that...they...choose not to, but I do...

"...I do..."

He drew some more of the cigarette away with his short breathe, releasing it to the side, Seamus getting used to such a scent, a scent that always burned his nostrils and dried his eyes. A scent he couldn't stand...an activity he couldn't stand... Jordan peeled more of his chapped lip away with his teeth, taking a break from speaking before starting his words up again, explaining to Seamus things he needed to know and didn't.

"And...since they don't see...I'm different." He concluded, almost accepting the other's insults and put downs on him, he sees himself as 'different' as do all the others. And Seamus...he wasn't sure how he saw the man in front of him anymore. A killer at first, but now...was he only human all along? "Other people get raises, earn diplomas, start families." He shook his head again, this time with a solemn straight face.

"And I can't because I'm different to them. They make me question myself." Seamus actually felt pity for the man seated in front of him. "To the point where...I'm not sure what the difference is anymore: what I do or just I." He mouth remained open, wanting to continue, but everything had been said and done. Yet, instead of closing his lips, he sucked on that cigarette, taking in the last of its essence.

Seamus leaned forward a bit in his seat, chair creaking along with, the table adjusting to the sudden weight increase of his rested arms. He kept a firm eye on Jordan, telling from his expression and body language that he was deeply affected by the thoughts and opinions of others. He cared about that, but kill he continued, such a question forming in Seamus' blunt mind.

"Why?"

Seamus simply asked, not giving anymore than that one word, that one word Jordan didn't answer to. He understood, Seamus could sense, but he refused to talk about it. He didn't even open his mouth for the rest of that cigarette as he scooted forward himself, cigarette but being held between his pointer and thumb, him rolling it slightly back and forth.

He kept it still before pressing it against the table, putting out the cigarette against the cool metal of the tabletop. It sizzled lightly as he pushed it against the stand, leaving a black, burn mark to stay in front of where he was seated. As simple as the act was, Seamus found it intimidating, how easily that cigarette was lit and how easily Jordan put it out. How the simple objects of hands could lead to unspeakable things, how they could create life, how they could take it away.

Intimidating.

"Why do you do it?" Seamus asked again, the silence of the room getting to him yet again. Jordan kept his lips sealed, they twitched slightly, wanting to speak, to defend himself, but he did not. His fingers removed themselves from the cigarette but, leaving it standing upright on the table, some smoke lingering. Jordan licked at his chapped lips, running his teeth over the bottom as he remained silent.

Seamus didn't speak when there was something he didn't want to say.

Perhaps himself and Jordan weren't so different after all...

Seamus was getting aggravated, talk all he wants, but when important information is needed, Jordan kept it concealed. A detective talking to a criminal, that skill of keeping quiet was mandatory. Yet, a criminal talking to a detective...why did he even call himself that anymore...?

"Why fulfill the difference?!?" Seamus snapped, his raise in voice made Jordan's eyes turn a mean color of blue, so many shades in so little time. In all honesty, Seamus was afraid of those eyes, afraid of that mouth and what it would say, afraid to be in front of this being before him. His opinion kept changing, first he saw Jordan as a killer, then contemplated his humanity, but what he really?

Dead or alive?

"I must!" Jordan pushed back, slamming his fist down on the table to end Seamus' words. His eyes seethed with anger, frustration boiling at an all time high as it poured into his mind, controlling him. The room grew not only silent, but motionless, everything still except for the cigarette but falling slowly, slowly, until it was lain on the table.

Seamus could still smell the smoke.

"The world needs all types of people." Jordan continued, furthering the two into their conversation, into Jordan's mind, into Seamus' investigation. Jordan seemed less tense, his fist returning to the form of a hand, the darkness of his eyes dissipating yet again as he stared down, far from the cop's eyes. "Some good, some bad, seers, doers. The wealthy, the poor, the suffering, the healthy." He listed, his head swaying left to right, left to right as he went on and on.

"Teachers, lawyers, astronauts," he glared at Seamus, "detectives." Intimidating... "And the few people like me." He grinned . "Your labeled 'killers'." He looked down at his watch tick, tick, ticking away at the illusion that is time. They might have been able to hold him for forty eight hours, but time didn't help him. They didn't really have him without a confession.

They didn't have him at all.

"I do it because I have to." Jordan shot straight at the point, shoving it in Seamus' face, giving him what he wanted in a manner that was menacing. Dangling it right in front of him... "Because no one else sees like I do. I have to do it." Maybe they really weren't so different...I have to...I have to find her...she's all I have...I have to find her...dead or alive...dead...or alive...

"Everything happens for a reason..." Jordan's voice trailed off, his eyes appearing tired as well, his mind derailing, hurting, pounding just like Seamus'. Everyday. "Those lives are gone because of me...I...I had to do it." He stiffened in his seat, it seemed as if he didn't believe in his own words, his confidence not fully behind him as much as it was.

Jordan knew he wasn't speaking the truth.

"Did you come to conclusions by yourself?" Seamus wondered, picking up hints and clues along the way by himself, somewhat returning to the cop everyone used to know. It felt nice to shake hands with somebody for once. "Or...did someone tell you, you had to do it?" His mind began to repair itself, it didn't feel so clouded and in pain, he felt...in control again...

...it actually felt good...

Jordan ignored the question yet again, his teeth clenching his bottom lip between them, wanting and not wanting to answer, knowing and not knowing what to say, who to trust, what to do. It was he who was playing mind games, but it was he who found himself with a losing score. He let in a light breath, keeping his eye contact away from Seamus, his eyes gazing at the stained table due to himself.

"Someone told you...didn't they?" Seamus picked up on the silence, using it as a tool to guide him instead of drown him again and again in his shallow life, not knowing he could even drown in something as such. He leaned a bit closer to the criminal, the chair creaking a bit more, the table taking on more weight of Seamus' crossed arms. "Someone told you to do this. And you're scared."

He read Jordan's face like a book, every book needs to be read between the lines. He studied the other's eyes, the reluctance to speak, in worry of what might come out, what Seamus might catch onto, what might cost him the test of his life in a rotting cell. His face was plain, but the eyes were what held it all.

It took twenty five days of staring at himself in that mirror to solve that.

"You're scared alright." Seamus muttered, nodding his head subtly as his eyes ran circles around Jordan's. "Scared that if you don't obey that someone...something'll happen to you." Jordan's eyes met Seamus at that, the fear intensifying as his face seemed calm, the inside of him screaming for help, he was trapped by his own self.

He didn't answer.

Seamus let go of a quick breath, letting his mind piece it all together. Pieces...all I see are pieces... "Someone has tricked you into killing-" He began.

"Don't call me a killer!" That frustration on the inside bled out onto the skin of Jordan, everything he felt was now visible, and not just in the eyes. The majority was anger, anger which made it harder for Jordan to breathe, harder to think, harder to keep up his charade of power above all. It ran like blood all over his body. "You categorize me as that because you're just like the rest, you don't understand!

"You don't know! You don't see!" Jordan yelled, Seamus barely flinching from the sound. He didn't feel like much of a cop, as much as it felt good, he had to accept that he was only changing into the shadow of his former self. That's all he ever saw anymore. Not what Jordan wanted.

"See what?"

"Them!" He shouted, teeth clenched and bared, his eyes fading to the darkest of blue, possibly to the color of black itself. "Them for who they truly are, the lives lost, lives I took, the lives that separate me from everyone else!" The differences, Seamus thought, at least he defined that they were the disparity and not himself. What was he...?

"No one saw them how I saw them! No one saw them for who they are!" His words grew meaner and meaner, his eyes growing darker and darker, Seamus seeing for himself that there was a shade darker than dark, and he was speaking with it right now, standing above him as he raged on. "I did! I did!"

Jordan heaved breath after breath, his body shaking from how on edge he was, the coldness of his almost nonexistent heart traveling from the inside to out. He swallowed as he leisurely sat down, the trembling in his body dialing down, but not entirely as his stress level was nearly choking him, it already had him in its grip. He pursed his lips for a moment before coating them with his tongue, his teeth raking over the bottom slowly, slowly.

He closed his eyes, dipping his head down as he blew out a breath, his mind even more tired than before. "They deserved it...I'm the only one who knows how they truly are...they deserved it..." He whispered, Seamus having a bit of trouble hearing his words. "I know how the really were...I'm not like the rest." He brought his eyes back to Seamus, keeping an even gaze. "I saw. I did. It's done." His voice grew quieter with each of the two words, he no longer bothered to speak, his mind pulsating and weak.

Seamus could tell from all of this that Jordan was suffering, too. There was something more than the naked eye could perceive, something to Jordan that was the cause for everything, something behind those terrifyingly illuminating eyes. They only conclusion Seamus could draw was suffrage.

When Seamus suffered, he drank.

When Jordan suffered, he smoked.

Seamus opened his jacket pocket, retrieving that pack of cigarettes, him fumbling with it in his hand. He held it right side up before placing it down in front of Jordan, the two exchanging no words as Jordan just watched. Seamus' hand pulled away from the carton that now lain in front of Jordan, Jordan getting the message that Seamus had sent with no words whatsoever.

The silence returned before Seamus had filled it, the two back to where they started with eye contact, uneasy, but oddly comfortable.

"Jordan," Seamus spoke his name, "as you see him, I want you to tell me about James Wilson."


	6. Chapter 6: Playing Nice

"...I want you to tell me about James Wilson."

Jordan stared down after Seamus had spoken, his eyes bouncing around on the tabletop, concentrating on one thing at a time, Seamus' folded hands, the tan, paper folder between them, the cigarette but still holding that familiar, yet flagrant scent. He had heard Seamus' words, his mind registering them, thinking up an answer, along with a lesson for Seamus to learn.

To learn the differences and similarities of himself and the other.

The saint and the sinner.

"Why?" He asked lifting his hand to mouth, his thumb, his nail, his teeth biting and breaking it. "So you can hold me accountable for the loss of his life?" His chilled eyes mirrored Seamus', the icy stare from the two of them created goosebumps to arise on one's skin, Seamus', the other's skin couldn't compare to how cold the inside of him was. How cold his soul became, how frozen his heart was. How his feelings froze, thawed, and melted away.

"I know the only reason you want to hear my words is so you can use them against me." It was Seamus who was stuck at an impasse, but it appeared as if Jordan was the one in a rut. Case after case...criminal after criminal... "They don't matter," Jordan murmured, his eyes wandering back down, "just as long as I'm behind bars, looked down upon by society, by people who choose to see different than I." There was a hint of frailty in Jordan's voice.

"That's the only reason."

His feelings were ones of mystery, they disappeared from the human eye, yet exuded in with his words when they wanted, they made Seamus hate the man in front of him, but still consider him a man. Throughout his sociopathic behavior, he still had the ability to feel, going along with the other's views of him, being emotionless, unstable, unimportant. He went along with those words, those labels, being who they wanted him to be.

They being the public. Or...maybe someone more.

He was being someone he wasn't, those feelings springing in and out again was who he was, who he used to be. He was almost nothing compared to how he was now, he was someone he didn't want to be. Stuck in a stranger's body, lost behind a stranger's eyes, trapped in a stranger's mind. Jordan didn't even know who he was anymore, Seamus couldn't help, but relate. He was stuck, too, he was lost, he was trapped.

In a body that wasn't his, behind eyes that weren't his, in a mind that was so close, yet so far from a killer's.

Don't call me a killer...!

"But...you intrigue me, detective." Jordan spoke up, his thumbs tapping against one another again, they tapped along each second of the clock, one, two, three, four, another timer counting down the seconds Seamus lived, the seconds that meant nothing, but everything at the same time. "You may appear just like all the rest, but...there's something in you, something that isn't you, something that's me."

What did those withering eyes see?

"In you, there might be the ability to understand me." At least he had one answer down. Why him? "You have that comprehension, to be able to pick my brain and understand as I do." He smiled. He looked down at his watch. "You can learn about me. I'm a lesson, almost." His orbs closed before opening back up on Seamus, he was getting used to the startling stare they gave. "But the question is...are you willing to learn?"

Seamus didn't answer, keeping his lips firmly together, his teeth biting his tongue, preventing himself from saying a word. Jordan was manipulative, creating a spider web around them of wise words and comebacks, questions without an answer or ones Seamus refused to. That web keeping him in place, keeping him in that room, keeping him stuck as a stranger, and that web doing that same with Jordan, too. Preventing his old self return to his body.

Instead, he was possessed.

Possessed by a stranger. Tricked by a stranger.

Jordan took in a small breath, pausing before getting the words out. "I want to play a little...game." Jordan started, his hands fluttering as he tried to think of the word. "Just an experiment, the first lesson of many, I hope." Seamus swallowed, awaiting for the continuance of Jordan's explanation, the rules and regulations of Jordan's 'game'.

"How about," Jordan spoke up, "you tell me about James Wilson?" Jordan requested, raising his eyebrows to appear oh so innocent. But he wasn't, even if he wasn't guilty for the crime, he was still guilty for something. Everybody has shadows... "What was he like from what you've read?" He gestures his hand to the folder on the table.

"How would you describe him?"

Seamus was a bit reluctant to answer, all Jordan was doing was playing a game, but from Seamus' recent past, games were only played to show who the winners and loser were of life, and Seamus' didn't need to finish his game to know which one he indubitably was. He kept his stare away from Jordan as he lifted his hand from his lap, pulling the tan folder back towards himself with two fingers.

He opened it and let his eyes fall to the first paper, the first face, the first name. Seamus was just a number. James was just a name. His brown eyes, his black hair, his smile, his looks. To think of the last thing that mouth said. The last thing those eyes saw. One was a mystery, the other was predictable. Seamus ran his eyes over the words again, knowing his answer, and letting his weak state take advantage of him.

He kept wondering about the last time James opened his mouth, his last words, what it felt like.

It felt like right now as Seamus opened his own.

"He was young." Seamus started, claiming the obvious at first. "Didn't deserve to go at such an age of twenty five." He eyed Jordan, but saw something in the others that gave him reasoning. There's something in you...the ability to understand me... "Yet, again, a person at the age of eighty doesn't deserve to go."

Death was always something that worried, yet captivated Seamus. How life could be created was quite amazing alone, but how easily and unexpectedly it could be taken away was what got him. You'd never know when it'd happen, and when it does, you're not there to witness it. The wonder of something so cruel, but collective. Yet, also the fear.

Where did that life go? He wouldn't know, nor would anyone. There was a chance that life was metaphorically recycled, reincarnation at its best. But, again, chances were only chances. Kevin had a chance...look where he is...a place where only one person knows... Did the life just disappear like the smoke to a fire, the steam to heat, the fog above a swamp? Did it just linger before never returning again?

Or was there really a heaven? Was there really a Hell? A God? A devil? A limbo?

Perhaps there was.

Perhaps there wasn't.

Death was always something that worried, yet captivated Seamus.

"He seemed like a sweet guy." Seamus continued on James, closing the folder in front of him, the face of the twenty five year old pressed into his mind, his and the six other's, all so different with one similarity. The person seated across from himself. "Funny...considerate...a person you could rely on." Seamus labeled, going off of an outsider's viewpoint on another person he would never come across.

Only in death.

"He was just an intern, but I feel like he deserved more." They deserved it, Detective O'Doherty... "He did all he could in life...and now his body is missing from the world's radar." An ounce of resent flashed over Seamus' eyes, staring down at Jordan's hands, clean, polite, folded.

Only a few know the truth about them. About the lives those hands took.

Clean. Polite. Folded.

"Sweet...funny...considerate..." Jordan whispered Seamus' words back to himself, his mind not believing a word. He looked back to Seamus, smirking lightly as he shook his head, his blue eyes holding something devilish. "You are just like the rest. Oblivious. Forgetful. Denial." Jordan listed, almost amused by Seamus' answer, the tug at his lips becoming more forceful, his small smirk forming into a cheshire grin.

"You don't seem to remember those shadows you mentioned." Jordan elucidated further, by the mention of them, more covered his eyes. Jordan licked his cracking lips, raking his teeth over the bottom again, this man was a creature of habit. Or perhaps just a creature. "Those shadows aren't just a shade of what they used to be. They're something more.

"Detective, what is a shadow?" Jordan questioned, that tone, that god forsaken tone, being picked by Seamus' ears again, that tone that made Seamus regret ever feeling sorry for Jordan. That tone that Seamus couldn't even call a noise, couldn't even call a sound, couldn't even call a voice. That tone that made Jordan indecisive, he was calm, condescending, and cruel all at the same time.

Was it even possible to be all passive, assertive, and aggressive?

"What the hell does this have to do with Wilson?" Seamus confronted, placing his fist onto the table, trying hard to keep himself together, but that the midst of breaking apart even more. And exploding.

Jordan only returned Seamus' attitude with a blank stare, his smile fading to a fine line, his face dignified, yet hid the smallest bit of mockery. "As much as it has to do you and I." He answered, his voice cold. "Nearly everything." Seamus took a breath, his hand no longer a fist, but still placed on the table, shaking and clammy. Jordan took note of Seamus' hand, keeping his gaze on it foe a moment or so, speaking nothing, expelling nothing, but carbon dioxide into the air.

Jordn swallowed before picking up where he left off, sitting himself up straighter. "What exactly is a shadow?" He reprised, cocking his head to the left as he stretched out his neck, a small pop being heard from the action.

Seamus sighed frustratedly, skeptical about answering but another of Jordan's infiltrating questions, the true detective being dominated by a killer. Has it really been that long...? Seamus stiffened his jaw before replying, his eyes rather bleak and tired. "The dark area produced by any object in light." Seamus answered, not knowing how the topic had any relevance to the facts that lay before them.

Jordan was killer. Seamus was a detective. There were seven bodies out there, somewhere, and to find them, it would be nearly impossible.

"A dark area, an outline, a silhouette." Jordan ran across synonyms, cocking his head to the other side, another pop heard as he sighed lightly. "Almost like ghosts, really, wouldn't you think?" Jordan compared, trying to bring that part of Seamus out, that part that wasn't him, that part that was the other. Little by little, Seamus was letting it give way into himself. "The way they linger, the way it follows, the way it's always attached to you.

"You move, you hide, you stay put, and it's always there." Jordan raised his hand back to his mouth, elbow resting in the metal table, his hand equal with his lips as his teeth began chewing at the nail of his thumb again. Biting it, breaking it. "That's what people tend to ignore with others, everyone else." Jordan summed up, his teeth slightly grinding against his nail.

"Their ghosts." Seamus commented, understanding what Jordan had meant as the conversation moved forward.

Jordan nodded his head, removing his hand from his face, placing it on the table without so much as making a sound. "Everyone has them, whether they're visible or not." A statement that was too hard to believe, but he had to agree nonetheless. Everyone does have ghosts, no matter how innocent they may appear. Everyone, himself included. Everyone.

Ghosts were the only connection Seamus had anymore to everyone. Anyone.

"I have them, you have them, Edwin, Stefani," Seamus sent Jordan a glare, he knew, he knew too much. He knew about his daughter, her name, possibly her grade, likes dislikes, perhaps how to lure her away from Seamus. He sent him a glare. Jordan ignored it. "James Wilson." He finished the list of examples with the victim himself, the topic of conversation, the answer to a thousand questions.

"Not everyone's a saint, no one doesn't deserve to die at eighty, thirty five, or twenty five." Jordan stressed, emphasis and power coating every word, each word crushing the beliefs Seamus once had. Now he knew everyone was guilty, no matter how distant or closely related he knew them, they held something. Secret. It was scary, having that revealed to him, those words, this conversation, altering his life just a little more. He had to question all he trusted and buy into that fear.

Jordan cleared his throat. "Everyone has ghosts. Demons. Pasts. Shadows." His tone was dialing down again, quiet, calm, but not too much of either. "It's up to you on whether you wish to see them. I didn't ask to, but now I do." Those words sprung curiosity in Seamus, him remembering them, placing them in the back of his mind, a note on the back of hishand for later.

"I see the bad in everybody." Jordan stared directly at Seamus after that, he saw the bad in everyone, and he was seeing it right now in Seamus. "I see. I know. I do."

Jordan let go of a sigh, resting his back against the chair, his words a roller coaster of emotions and messages. Some good, some bad, some threatening, some reasonable. Others enticing, others sickening to the stomach, some worried him, others kept him at ease. He couldn't stay at one stage for no longer than a few minutes and he didn't like it, he didn't like not being in control of how he felt. Things were somewhat simpler when all he felt was depression, just one road he had to walk upon, nothing confusing or painful.

And then he met Jordan Mathewson.

And a million feelings he couldn't conquer at once.

He sees, he knows, he does...he sees...what does he see...? "How do you see James Wilson?" Seamus brought back the original question posted to the other, how he viewed his victim in those stone cold eyes. What he said to him, what he did to him, what he threatened, where he took him, took from him, made him experience over and over.

And why.

Jordan smirked at the question, again, seeming amused. His eyes pulled their weight up to Seamus', his stare unsettling, Seamus believing his words might be just a little more. "A devil in disguise." Jordan answered without going on just yet, drawing things out to push his lessons through, he wanted this to happen, he did leave that fingerprint, he wanted Detective O'Doherty to see him. To talk to him. To meet him.

To understand.

Yet, understand, he could not.

"Those words you described James as," Jordan asked, his eyes aimed at the table as he spoke, his smirk still visible, "where did you retrieve them from? From whom?" He rested his head against his hand, awaiting an answer in false anticipation, that smile of his making Seamus grimace a bit more.

Seamus took a while before he responded. He sighed, holding the bridge of his nose with his thumb, middle, and fore, closing his eyes before opening his mouth. "Uh...friends, family, co-workers-" He was cut off, hearing that happen making him almost lose it, the tiniest things could upset him.

"They're just friends, family, and co-workers playing nice." Seamus looked up at that, opening his lids to a pair of soulless eyes staring back at him. They were ahaded their normal color of blue, but something didn't seem right about them, there was something in them that Seamus saw in his own every morning, something. One thing. Pain. Soulless, they were...

"They're just more people who choose not to see as I see, they ignore, neglect, forget." Seamus lifted his head from his hand, feeling pins and needles attacking his forearm. He concentrated more onto Jordan's words, into Seamus' words, thinking more about the messages held behind his words rather than the words themselves. He...understood... "They make themselves believe that he was sweet, funny, considerate, and nothing more."

Jordan bit the inside of his mouth hard, shaking his head again at the words, the thoughts, the truths about people, how they despised him and how he despised them. "He had another part to him, a part that bled through often, but that they don't admit." He inhaled sharply, almost as if to keep himself awake. "Playing nice." He breathed out, his lings relaxing. "All they're doing is playing nice."

Seamus pushed his hair back, it was in need of a cutting, growing longer to emphasize the fact that he had taken care of himself in almost a month. He couldn't, without her, it was impossible. He was doing the impossible. He was living, he was breathing, he was still continuing life, even though a life was something he wanted again. A life with a daughter who could grow up happily. A life with a wife who was always there. A life with a husband who wasn't hanging on to frayed ends.

He pushed his hair to the side, needing to tale care of himself, but refusing to. Believing he couldn't. Giving into that thought.

"What other side to James was there?" Seamus questioned, his eyes more alert, his senses sharpened, his skills of the past, training and practice, coming back to him little by little, recovering the corpse of Seamus O'Doherty and reviving him. It seemed too good to be true when he breathed yet again.

Jordan let go of a chilled breath, taking the cigarette box in his hand, tapping it lightly against the table, his mind battling on whether or not to have another. What he had was an addiction, his mind frequently wondering if he should fight it or fuel it. He often fueled it. He always fueled it. "He had a temper." Jordan answered, his voice low and muffled six feet under.

"A short fuse. The littlest of things could set him off." Seamus sighed, his eyes falling down. Wouldn't I know... "Wouldn't you know." Jordan read his mind, speaking the words with sincerity and directiveness. Seamus' keen eye took not of Jordan's adam's apple, it bobbing up then down before settling back into place as he swallowed.

"Now, he could be those things when he wanted, but that temper..." He shook his head again, despising. "He was lonely." Jordan spoke again, his hand freezing from the tapping of the box, from the ticking of the clock, the timer, his whole body seemed to freeze. Perhaps something he could relate to. Loneliness. "That ill manner of his pushed everyone away. Most of his friends, his family-"

It was Seamus' turn to interrupt.

"It says in his file that he had no living family." Seamus pointed out, pushing Jordan as he did him. Jordan caught on. He grinned.

Amused.

"That's what the file said because that's what he said, and the others in his life just repeated him." Jordan explained, placing the cigarette container down, pushing it to the side for now, feeling as if he wouldn't need one for a while. "He does have family, but chose to pretend as if they weren't his." Why would he do that...I would do anything for a family like that... "He pushed them away with that temper until they wanted nothing to do with him, until he didn't want anything to do with them." That was rather sad really.

"Never took anything for granted..." Jordan recited a line in the bio of James behind the folder, as if he had not only read it, but written it himself. "...it's a just a line and a lie whispered down the lane." He leaned his head back, stretching his neck again.

Pop.

"No one else knows he lied?" Seamus wondered, finding his own pieces to mend together the ones that stood.

"No one except his mother...," Jordan replied, "but...she's just-"

"Playing nice." Seamus finished, Jordan smiling slightly, almost as if he were proud. He was understood by someone who seemed the least likely. His smile widened. "How would you know this?" Seamus took a step back, finding himself confiding in a criminal again, he just took a step back to breathe, yet at the same time, wondering if the air was toxic.

Jordan chuckled, his smile growing toothy, his head swaying left and right, left and right, eyebrows raised once more, entertained. "Please, detective." His voice sounded rather euphoric. "You're asking someone like me how I got information? How I would know?" His laughs grew a bit heavier, his head resting against his hand once more. "It has been a while since your last case, hasn't it?"

He suppressed his laughter into his hand, a few chuckled slipping as he took a breath, easing himself before continuing. "How do you think I would know, detective? Put the pieces together."

In the recovering mind of Seamus, it didn't take too long until he came across the answer Jordan wanted to hear, the solution to his question. It didn't take too long. Yet again, the criminal still held the high ground.

"You were a bystander in his life." Seamus concluded, seeing the arrogant delight spread across his face again, a shine circling his eyes, alley-ooping before flying away. Seamus didn't know which was more alluring, the mind of a killer or the eyes of a killer. "Someone he didn't know, but...you knew him."

Jordan nodded, keeping his eyes at the same level as Seamus', the stare causing the smallest of friction to form between the two, the tension piling onto that. "I stalked my prey." Jordan agreed in his own words, how he saw what he did in his own eyes, behind his own eyes. Behind that devious smile and vicious sneer. "I watched from windows, cars from afar, right under his nose."

That chuckle from him ricocheted in Seamus' head.

"I watched him for a few days, I learned his schedule." He went on, his eyes following that trail again, Seamus', to that camera, to that ring. Circles, circles... "What time he left for work, when he came back, what time he ate dinner, what consisted of dinner." All jotted down in a date book of his own, a date book of the past, a past that wasn't his own.

"His contacts, his interests, strengths, weaknesses, habits." He paused momentarily, biting at his chapped lip again. "Mistakes..." Every human makes them. Some make their fiftieth, their hundreth, their thousandth. Some make their first. Some make their last. Based on Jordan's words, James Wilson made his last.

"He was a forgetful kid, too much on his mind to remember to lock his car door when at work, a bad habit, a bad mistake." Seamus could already tell where this was going, yet again, anyone could really. "I took advantage of it. And it also happen that he parked just out of view of the security camera that night."

Mistakes.

Seamus swallowed. "You abducted him that night from that parking garage without so leaving a single hair or print." It was Seamus who shook his head, despising. "The only one you did, you left purposefully." Jordan's expression turned serious once again, his eyes reading something that his lips didn't speak straightaway. He waited a moment or two before expelling his inner thoughts.

"I had to." Jordan spoke as if he were talking down to Seamus, the detective didn't understand just yet, another lesson needed to be taught, another lesson of many, Jordan hoped. "I wanted someone to see my final act." He listened not to the words, but the hidden message behind them... Jordan didn't open his mouth for a moment, only leaving the two to gaze at each other in awe and fret.

Awe in Jordan to see how easily he could manipulate a mind.

Fret in Seamus as he wondered what that final act could be.

"And I will hear you applaud, detective." Jordan whispered, so lowly , only the ears of Seamus could barely pick it up. "You will applaud."

Another minute passed of silence, followed by another, and another. Silence as a constant. Silence was a given.

Silence was a gift. Silence was a torture.

"What did you do to James Wilson?" Seamus finally asked, on his last nerve with the foreplay. He wanted answers, tired of seeing Jordan dance around them slyly. That's all Seamus was, just tired. Tired of the drama, tired of the pain. Tired of day to day life, tired of long nights of no sleep. Tired of being away for so long from his daughter, and how he couldn't control that with his wife.

Tired of the war inside of him. Outside of him. Of him. Tired of looking down at that ring, tired of removing it, tired of placing it back on. Tired of the memories, the flashbacks, the reminiscence. The nightmares, and frankly, the few good dreams to. He was tired of nearly everything anymore, but he couldn't sleep. He couldn't rest. He wasn't allowed a break.

And Jordan could relate.

"What did you do to James Wilson?"

Jordan cleared his throat.

"What needed to be done."

He paused.

"I dismembered him alive."


	7. Fear In The Eyes

Black hair. Brown eyes. One of the nicest smiles Seamus had ever seen.

Taken from the world in such a cold, sinister way.

Seamus stared into the false eyes of James Wilson, feeling tears swim in his own as he was terrified of the case he had found himself in. His life for the past twenty five days and nights was unbearable and scary, living a life without Ashley, living a life with pain to replace her. He couldn't move on from that, no matter how many times he told himself, Eddie told him, Liz told him. Even Jordan in the most distant of ways.

He couldn't. What did that make him...?

Now, here he was, fearing for his life in a case that involved death. Nothing, but the cruel hardships these people faced before having their lives stolen in an instant. Poor, innocent people, as much as Seamus could see as Jordan, he refused to let a killer contradict the way he perceived people. All people have good in them, all people have bad, some people have hearts, some people don't.

And some people just carry around husks of one in their chest.

And Seamus was scared.

Scared of what the case would lead up to. Scared of where it had already gone. Scared of what had happened to those people, scared of that pain, scared of what those eyes saw, what they'll never see, scared of the place they went after life, scared of death. Scared for himself, his safety, scared for Stefani, Eddie, Ash. Frightened for Ash.

Scared of Jordan. Scared of what he was capable of. Scared of the way he saw. Scared of the fact that he could see that way, too.

Scared that he could be Jordan.

Scared that he could've been James.

He took a breath to ease himself, looking up from the file to around his kitchen, thanking God for letting him be at home. He didn't have to fear being in front of that murderer with all the protection in the world, yet really, no protection. He didn't feel so safe there as he did at home, home where, although it was nearly hollow, held something near and dear to his heart.

Family.

Family...

He shook his head, there used to be a fine line between where his work life ended and where his family life began. But, those lines were slowly fading away behind closed eyes, things seeping in and out of each which made Seamus' head pound. Which made him take another sip from his beer.

He swallowed the mixture of alcohol and foam, feeling it almost tingle on the way down, wanting it to and knowing it would numb everything until morning, morning twenty six, twenty six days without her. It would also be day two. Day two of the forty eight hours they were allowed to keep Jordan in restraints. He needed a confession. He needed that evidence.

He needed to find those bodies.

Oh god...the bodies...the...pieces...

~~~~~~~

"I dismembered him alive." Jordan admitted, staring straight into Seamus' eyes, straight into Seamus' soul. He smiled. He looked down at his watch. "That hand was the perfect message." His voice was low, unsettlingly low as Seamus comprehended the words, wanting to hear them wrong, praying he heard him wrong.

But knowing what Jordan said, knowing that...that was the truth. The God awful truth of what had happened to twenty-five year old James Wilson. Jordan didn't hold the slightest sign of regret across his face, he felt no disgust towards what he did, or even relatively guilty for ending a life the way he did. Even for just ending a life.

It didn't weigh down on him, it didn't haunt him. Seamus had seen a lot of lives come and go throughout the cases he was assigned, each one still mocking him to this day, he was amazed that he was still this stable. And by stable, he was just barely anymore. Jordan didn't feel any remorse for the blood staining his hands, who that blood belonged to.

He just...smiled.

He just...looked down at that's watch.

"You..." Seamus stuttered, unbelieving of the words Jordan spoke, normally the confessions of a killer didn't bother him. 'I shot him in the head', 'I raped the son of a bitch', 'I choked her until the life in her eyes died'. But Jordan's words made that difference in Seamus' life, those four words he couldn't get over. I dismembered him alive. "You...you did what...?"

Jordan looked up from the accessory on his wrist to Seamus' widened eyes, studying the shock in them as well as the fatigue, internally grinning at the effect he placed upon others. That grin bled to the outside, his small smirk growing from a smile ear to ear. "I cut him into pieces while his heart still bled." Jordan rephrased, how words still stinging Seamus' mind from before.

"And bleed...he did..."

Jordan chuckled while shaking his head, looking down at the table with that smirk of his, that smirk that read that he was proud of himself. "He woke up earlier than I expected, shouting and screaming, he was a loud one." Jordan explained, after torturing Seamus, he gave him the answers he needed. The answers, now, Seamus was afraid to hear.

"He yelled a lot," Jordan continued, his eyes wandering in that same pattern around the room to the person in front of him, "usually his behavior was what was caused him to." His head lightly swung left to right. "This time it was his fear." He paused, teeth running over his bottom lip again. "He held a great amount of that. Fear."

His eyes fell to the cigarette box to the left of him now, the war within himself, the addiction within himself playing out again, fuel it or fight it, fuel it or fight it. He always was stubborn. "Do you know what fear looks like in the eyes, detective?" Jordan wondered, getting his mind off the box and onto the eyes in front of him. "You've definitely seen a number of emotions. Joy, depression, hurt, confusion, frustration. In others...definitely in yourself."

Seamus eyed him again, staring into those eyes that were as raw as charcoal.

"But, do you know what fear looks like?" Jordan waited a moment, reading in Seamus' eyes that he didn't know, thirteen years of being a detective and the only fearful eyes he saw were his own, but not clearly. They were always covered with tears. "People see things differently, but that fear always looks the same."

He swallowed. "The pupils dilate, the irises lighten all except an outer ring, it's thin, but it darkens, and it darkens quickly." Jordan described, he knew the sight well, so much fear he put into others, so many people he had killed. He knew the sight well. "The eyes become shaky, the textures in them blending to look and move like lightning."

His eyes seem transfixed by the memory, them drifting down to the table as his eyebrows raised, his pupils contracting slightly. "Fear." He repeated, his head dipping downwards before lifting itself back up, his eyes out of their trance and greeting Seamus' again. "It really is wondrous."

Seamus silently agreed, but still struggled see the beauty in someone else's pain. Fear was something else that peaked his curiosity, the many forms of it, the many outcomes, the effects on people. How it was a motivator, fear could change someone's life around or push them to reach a goal. But as much as it was an uplifter, it was also a weight to drag you right back down.

Fear was tantalizing. Fear was condescending. Fear was stressful, bitter, inconsiderate. It entered life without warning and never left, it swarming your soul until you were just a corpse in a coffin. Fear was that crooked smile in your tears, fear was that devilish laughter in your screams, fear were those ear piercing taunts in your begs for help. For someone.

For her.

Fear was a motivator. Fear was a weight.

Fear was Jordan Mathewson.

What he saw was himself in his victim's eyes.

"Now, his eyes..." Jordan's voice trailed off, his memories coming alive to him, those eyes of James Wilson staring right at him, right there before him, "they were beautiful." He let out a quiet breath, if the tension between the two was any greater, they would've seen it. "It's a shame those eyes lost their life, they were a sight to see.

"I savored them...and the more he was afraid, the more beautiful those eyes became." He chewed on his bottom lip as he held back a grin, the sight playing in his head. "Fear was what made them what they were. But the pain...the pain is what topped it all off." He stopped again, Seamus taking Jordan's words into effect of himself, connecting it, realizing it.

Alongside his fear came pain, pain of what was missing from his heart and pain of the things trying to fill it. To replace what was gone, not heal, not help, replace. It couldn't be done, no one could replace Ashley, but the blade pressing against their hearts kept hem apart, cutting a little deeper each time he thought about her. Definitely when she thought about him.

And that brought pain. And it scorched Seamus inside and out, burning away all he had left, leaving scraps, ashes, pieces. Of his family, of his life, of his job, of himself.

That fear. That pain.

There was no beauty in them.

"I made small cuts at first." Jordan went onto say, seeing weakness and infirmity overlap Seamus' eyes, the story was also tearing him apart limb from limb, bringing out that fragility in him, that fragility that was him. "They were just light lacerations around his wrists, his ankles, over the tops of his thighs, a little harder on the arms." Seamus nearly cringed at the description. "It was nothing to impair him," Jordan shook his head swiftly, "just something to make his teeth clench, his back arch, his eyes water.

"Enough for that pain to be unleashed, that little glint in the eyes."

Jordan paused, his words coming to a halt as his eyes escaped the tattered stare with the detective. They flew back down to the cigarette box that he had pushed slightly closer to himself, feeling the war, the battle, the addiction. He finally gave into it all again. He lifted the container, sliding the lid open and removing a cigarette, assembling it between his middle and pointer, his pointer curling over the top, his middle just being a rest.

"Would you?" Jordan wondered, his eyes frozen on Seamus', his hand lifting a bit, gesturing and referring to his cigarette needing to be lit. Seamus dipped his hand into his pocket again, handing Jordan the lighter, slightly worrisome about giving a killer a makeshift weapon. Even more worrisome about giving it to a killer who found Seamus as a target.

Jordan rolled his thumb over the flint wheel of the lighter, a spark igniting before the flame. He placed the cigarette in his mouth, biting down on it lightly with his teeth to keep it in place as he brought that lighter closer, igniting the tobacco encased in paper. He drew a breath in while removing his thumb from the wheel, the fire dying just as quickly as it was born.

And of it came a puff of smoke to erupt from behind Jordan's lips.

"The eyes intrigue me, too, detective." Jordan continued, lightly placing the lighter onto the table, sliding it almost painfully across it before it met Seamus' side, it slightly bumping the paper folder before stopping completely, Jordan's hand almost floating away from it. It was quiet a moment or so longer as Jordan drew in a second huff from the cigarette, the ashes already beginning to pile up on the floor.

"But, he was getting more irritable," he referred to James, "begging for his life, claiming that he had done nothing wrong." Jordan looked as he if he wanted to laugh. "Again...he was those things when he wanted to be." Sweet...funny...considerate... He tapped his finger against the cigarette, the scent of ash lingering on his side of the room, it beginning to spread to Seamus'.

"I cut him a bit harder, a bit deeper through the flesh, through the muscles, through the veins, through the nerves, through the bone." He turned his head to the side, tapping his cigarette again lightly. "Until his hand fell to the floor." His spoke the words so lightly, watching the flakes of ash resemble the limbs of James Wilson. Watching them fall to the floor.

Seamus felt his stomach twist again, a thousand knots turning into a massive tie in himself. It hurt to hear what Jordan had done, the torture he put those people through. The torture he put James through. It agonized Seamus more to see how nonchalant Jordan appeared while explaining his actions, the flesh, the muscles, the veins, the nerves, the bones meaning nothing to him.

All, but a reason to smile.

"There was so much blood..." Seamus felt himself shiver. "It was all I could see, all I could smell, all I could...taste..." He paused, placing the cigarette back in his mouth, filling his lungs with smoke before letting it out to the air around him, smoke was all his breath carried. "All he did was scream..." He could hear the shouts, recorded and played again and again in his memory.

"But I didn't continue to hear the screams." He shook his head, peeling more of the flesh away from his bottom lip.

Seamus connected the dots.

"You did it for the fear in the eyes."

Seamus mental notes to himself, picking up small tics, hints, holes, and strengths in the complexity of Jordan. He did what he did to see the fear in other's eyes, to see what he could do to people, what power he held. He liked that, that power. He was a slave to control, his mind, his self was stable when knowing that, he ruled the upper hand.

But...what would happen if he didn't?

If he fell? He was overruled? If someone cut his upper hand like he did James'?

Seamus was afraid to find out.

And again, Jordan won that round.

"I cut the other hand...he was crying by then...," That vicious smirk returned to home on his face, it being a hostage to his malign, shadowed feelings. Were they even feelings...? "...and the tears...they make the eyes look even more beautiful..." Jordan was right, people see things differently, Jordan the most different of them all. Some people saw beauty as the aftermath of pain, to see how they survived and strived.

Jordan saw beauty as pain itself, the agonizing, decaying, crisp pain that was unbearable and brutal. A metaphorical knife in the heart, profusion of tears in the eyes, screams and yells, pleads and begs for help, of guilt, for release, of weakness. That malevolent being that eats away at us from the inside out and leaves us withering and alone. Pain. The true essence that is pain.

That was Jordan's beauty.

Jordan huffed another breath from his cigarette, forcing the flame to burn away even more of the object resting between his fingers. He held it for a moment before blowing to the left of him, letting it seep out from behind his bottom teeth. He cleared his throat while returning to face Seamus, his fingers, again, mashing the cigarette but into the table, leaving a second burn mark next to the first.

"He bled a lot." Jordan whispered, eyes focused on the still steaming cigarette end lain on the tabletop. "I cut the arms...then the feet..." He took in a sharp breath his mouth, sending that strong scent of smoke to the back of his throat. "...he was gone before I even finished the first leg..."

Seamus felt the life burn out in himself, too.

"But, he suffered...oh...he suffered..." Jordan tipped his head up the one across from him, seeing the black and blue bruises of his heart and soul force themselves to the outside, force themselves to be seen in the eyes, the eyes were what interested him. They show human weakness and strength. But, for Seamus, they only held one anymore.

It made Jordan smile wider.

"He himself was wrath. He suffered."

~~~~~~

"Wrath...." Seamus repeated under his breath, trying to tear apart the words that tumbled out of his cigarette scented mouth. He could still smell the smoke. "He himself was wrath..." What did that mean?, Seamus asked himself, feeling his eyes gravitate back to that bottle sitting before him.

Fight it. Fuel it.

Numb it.

Wrath was something made up of extreme rage, vexation, annoyance. Anger. James held a lot of anger, a lot of secrets, a lot of shadows, ghosts. Rage, vexation, and annoyance were what made up James alongside his blood and bones. Perhaps he wasn't wrath itself, but perhaps a resemblance of it, a representation, he wasn't it, but it was he.

Wrath.

"If he was wrath..." Seamus mumbled to himself, restraining his hand from grabbing the beer bottle as he picked up another sheet instead. "...then what are you...?" He rhetorically asked, the person to whom he spoke couldn't answer. They were dead. They were just a picture.

They were just another pair of brown eyes and brown hair.

~~~~~~

"What can you tell me about Aleksandr Marchant?" Seamus asked as he pushed a photo of the boy across the table, steering clear of the homemade ash tray Jordan had begun. Yet, as he placed the photo closer, Seamus pondered why he was even bringing it out. Jordan remembered Aleks' face.

He remembered the eyes.

Jordan took a small breath, leaving it linger before letting it out, just like he would the vapor of a cigarette. "As much as his file...and a drop more." Jordan answered, the packaged sticks of cancer bringing out the inside of him. His eyes were a bit bloodshot, red veins on the corners of his eyes. Bags were beneath them, too, light against his skin, but at the same time, dark.

Jordan was tired, Seamus knew the sights of it like the back of his hand. But tired of what was the question. Seamus had a number of things to be tired of, all categories under the main bother towards him: his life. What was left of it, what was left behind to survive on its own, Stefani, Liz, Eddie, and an empty heart where his wife should be. That was what Seamus was tired of, the ruins of his world.

But...what was tiring Jordan? The interrogation, perhaps, Seamus himself was on edge due to that. But in the overall comparison, it was Jordan who seemed quite placid, his ominous and almost haunting demeanor was rather steady, calm, as if he had their conversation written out word for word on the back of his hand. Steady. Calm.

What was there to be tired of? About?

It surely wasn't what he had done, the way smiled about it, the way he talked, gloated, laughed about it showed that. He was proud of what he had done, he was able to sleep at night after washing the blood off of his hands, he was able to sleep. Seamus could barely breath about the thousands of lives lost surrounding his work, lives that weren't his fault, but he blamed himself for.

For them.

For her.

He was to blame.

He felt himself drowning.

His mind worked like Jordan's, but it wasn't it to an exact. All he knew was that Jordan was tired, and that himself was tired. The cigarettes are what brought that ugliness to the outside for Jordan. For Seamus, it was the foamy liquid from that bottle of beer.

And a drop more...

Jordan sighed, gazing down to Aleks' picture, letting his mind register, recognize such a face. "He was...an opposite of James, really." Jordan began, tilting the picture slightly to view it from another angle. "He was the up to James' down, although they didn't know each other. He was...the left to his right, the night to his day, yet the light to his darkness." He paused, peeling his eyes away from the brown ones from the past.

"But Aleksandr Marchant didn't hold any light." He seemed to stop breathing for a moment. "An opposite to James Wilson, but on all levels, just the same." He placed his pointer and middle finger onto the picture, slowly pushing it back towards the detective vertical of himself. Seamus took the photo back while letting Jordan's words ring in his ears, play in his mind, make deeper sense to the cop he was, yet used to be.

"Wrath?" He asked, breaking down the pieces of the puzzle to form one of his own, one that seemed...possible to solve.

Jordan's eyes turned nice for a moment, letting go of that bitter filter for a simple second, those eyes seeming pleased, at peace, thankful, almost. To finally be...understood. He grinned lightly, but that smile was a bit meaner than the eyes, condescending almost, thanking Seamus for trying, but letting him know that he wouldn't ever be close to matching such an intelligence.

"Not wrath...but...of that like."

He smiled.

He looked down at his watch.

Seamus kept quiet for a moment, studying Jordan's gaze, that habit of his was at the top of Seamus' list and observations of the man's tics. "What was Aleks in your eyes?" Seamus questioned, himself seeing the boy as another innocent. He had done nothing wrong in his life, mistakes, accidents, sure, of course. He good days, he had bad, he had high spirits, and he had his moments.

What could he have done to have death as the punishment? As the reward?

"He was...a victim, really." Seamus lifted his eyebrows at that, to hear Jordan have pity for one that he had killed, pity for anybody at all. He was surprised. He was tired. "He didn't ask for his...sin. But...he didn't change. Move on. He held the past in his hands, unable to let it go." He knew his file and a drop more...just from an outsider's perspective.

"He paid the price for that."

The invisible cloud of silence looked over the two yet again.

"A sin?" Seamus picked on Jordan's vocabulary, his choice of words vague, but at the same time detailed. A sin was an odd way of putting it, the reason of Aleks' death could have been blamed on a number of things. His ungratefulness, his cruelty, his selfishness, or dangerous behavior. But...a sin? To what? Walk on the Earth? Breathe like all living creatures? To live a life that was worth it?

A sin.

"A sin?"

Jordan only nodded, only answering a question of clarification, not one of confusion. "He let his consume him until he became one himself." He himself was wrath...what did Aleks possess in order to greet his quickened demise? "He owned jealousy...until he became jealousy..." Jordan's voice trailed off, trailing away as Seamus' mind went to work.

Jealousy, showing or feeling it towards someone or thing or towards their accomplishments, achievements. It was a green colored bastard. It played the games of 'How much better are you than me?', 'What do you have that I don't?', 'Will I ever be happy with myself knowing there are others out there, scoffing at the suffering of others like me?'. Games. It was just a game.

What games did Aleks' jealously play with him? What did it manipulate his mind to think? Do? Become? Not everyone is the same, Seamus had an understanding of covetous attitudes, he himself wearing one on his arm. But, he couldn't comprehend the jealousy in Aleks' mind without being Aleks himself. A case that was utterly impossible.

The only one that seemed like it could be real was asking the killer of him.

The killer of them all.

"What was there for Aleks to be jealous of?" Seamus pondered aloud, thoughts racing in and out of his mind, he couldn't think straight anymore, not like he could in the start. Aleks had all possible advances in life, he was financially stable, he was taking a few college courses online. He was intelligent, he was attractive, he was looking to get a great job to which he was highly qualified.

Chances.

Games.

Jealousy.

Of what?

Jordan stiffened in his seat, his gaze dipped down from Seamus', his shoulders tense, his jaw clenched as well as his even teeth, his breathing pattern had altered from slow and steady, to louder and quick. The signs of frustration, Seamus picked up, seeing them take affect to the man seated in front of himself. "What do you have to be jealous of, detective?" Jordan hastily asked back, ignoring the question with a second question.

Seamus sighed, annoyed himself, the answers and replies he needed were being blockaded yet again, postponed due to Jordan's uncooperative behavior. He held the bridge of his nose with his pointer, middle, and thumb, easing himself before trying to speak once more. "That is completely irrelevant-" He voice was overlapped with one that would forever stay in his ears, in his mind, in his memory.

The voice of Jordan Mathewson.

"What do you have to be jealous of, detective?" Jordan repeated, slowly and cautiously lifting his head back to Seamus, those tired eyes bleeding through again onto his person, perhaps it wasn't the cigarettes that brought the pain of Jordan out. Maybe it was himself letting it out, he wanted Seamus to see the broken parts of him, to understand, to empathize.

Those cigarettes were just an aid.

That beer was...just an aid...

Seamus didn't open his mouth, but that didn't mean he didn't leave the question unanswered. He kept it to himself, but the answer was there, laying out in the open for anyone to see it. Even Jordan could see it. He had a lot to be jealous of, jealous towards, his life was, but a dying flame, dying after all it had already burnt down everything.

He was jealous of the friends Stefani played with, Lo, Lauren, Jenna, Sydney, the lives they were lucky to have. A mom at home, a dad at home, a loving environment that would treat them with the childhood they deserved, the childhood of their dreams. A childhood he couldn't supply Stefani with anymore, another case that was impossible for Seamus to solve.

To live with in his aching heart.

He was jealous towards all the others around him, the happy lives they led, where those happy lives would go in the world, what they've already done. The families they created, how easily they functioned. Seamus' could barely breathe anymore... The accomplishments those people made, the jobs they earned. Seamus didn't know how to stop working...and when he was, it didn't feel very much like it...

He was jealous of their smiling faces, all feelings to him nowadays were numb to the core. He was jealous of any and all relationships people had with one another, all that were possible. Man and wife. God...where should he begin...in the same place he always had, repeat and repeat again... Brother and sister. Ash and himself always wanted another child...

Father and daughter. Now, it felt as if Stefani were taking care of him more than himself... Cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents. Seamus had...little to none, only a sister in law. His parents, one had passed away, the other was on the verge, his aunts and uncles barely acknowledged him anymore, his grandparents had gone, too, his cousins didn't even feel like family. And all of Ashley's left Seamus be, not saying it, but blaming him for her disappearance.

Their niece, their granddaughter, their cousin, their daughter.

His wife.

Stef's mother.

He blamed himself, too.

Even just the simple relationship of friends sparked that grudging pain inside of him. Friends were people who respected each other, helped the other out, always held out a hand to the other, always ready to make them smile. That's what a friendship was. He didn't feel that anymore with himself and Eddie.

Eddie tried to support Seamus after all he had been through, knowing and anticipating lashes, insults, reluctance, and lies of being 'fine'. Seamus had been through a rough time, those were the reactions of anyone under that kind of stress. But...what Eddie wasn't expecting was getting pushed away altogether. His attempts at help ignored, his tries to talk with Seamus met by the silence, sometimes by yells, his kindness just...tossed away.

And Seamus knew it hurt his friend drastically.

He had only done that, though, due to not just pain, but jealousy. Jealous of Eddie's fantastic life compared to his own. Eddie was a bachelor, he had seen a few women here and there, all beautiful, all crazy about him, although the times and relationships lasted shorter and shorter each time round. But, Eddie was loaded thanks to his job and parents, he was always a family man, meant to be a husband, a father.

He was meant to succeed. Seamus couldn't surround himself with that. Just then. Just barely now.

Seamus was jealous of his own friend.

He had gotten that low. He couldn't even accept his life as his own anymore, since Ash's departure, he had become in denial to it all. He wasn't sure who he was anymore, was he anybody? Or just a ghost possessing an already empty receptacle? Ghosts. Demons. Shadows. They weighed him down, they made his head hang.

When was the last time he laughed? Slept a full night? Had a good dream? Was able to spend time with his daughter? The little family he had left? When was the last time he didn't drink three beers almost every night? Was able to keep his eyes open for moments longer than seconds? That he actually had time sit down? Relax? Try to piece things back together? And do the same thing for himself?

When was the last time he even smiled?

His smiles today were false, he didn't mean them, again, just lies of being 'fine'. Each one he felt bad about, he was deceiving those around him, especially his daughter. His smiles were see-through, if he had possessed even the smallest amount of strength, his smiles may prove true. But, he wasn't strong. He was frail, breaking, bones brittle, and tears as fragile as them.

His smiles were fake.

And Stefani understood.

There was a lot for Seamus to be jealous of, jealous towards. And Jordan could read it in his blue eyes.

Jordan leaned forward, studying Seamus' eyes, how deep they first appeared and throughout his mind pounding like a tumor against his skull, they turned paler and paler. Jordan knew exactly what the detective was contemplating, he knew the man as if he had for years upon years, when truly it was only a matter of days.

And Seamus had only known Jordan for twenty four hours.

"Now..." Jordan whispered, bringing Seamus back into reality, pushing him up against the wall, the blade at his neck being the topic at hand, in those clean, but dirty hands. "...do you need to feel jealous towards all of that?" He questioned again, his voice no longer annoyed, just...bleak.

Seamus kept his mouth shut, hearing Jordan's words, and never feeling guiltier for how his family had turned out, how he himself turned out. He was being crushed under Jordan's thumb, he couldn't fight back, he could give in to the pain. He shook his head, knowing that he felt jealousy, perhaps amounts too great, too unhealthy.

Jealousy was the reason Aleksandr Marchant no longer walked the Earth. His desirous beliefs being his sin until he himself was that sin. And if that was to be the truth...what did that make Seamus...?

Jordan simply sighed, resting back in his chair once again, it creaking as the weight on top of it adjusted. "But you realize that, you admit that." Seamus looked at the man seated across the table, feeling some hope lift him up from the destruction and realization of what he had left. Confiding in a criminal. Hope. From a criminal. "Mr. Marchant was oblivious to that." He continued. "Blinded by his own self, his jealousy.

"His own self."

Seamus was terrified of his own mind, figuring that it can work and think like a killer's. He comprehended Jordan when most wouldn't, he put the pieces together, he found, at times, eye level with the man in between the shots fired and the bomb detonating. He had never thought like a murderer before, in past cases, the criminals were just scared, scared of Seamus, scared of the questions as they told all, no matter how tough they wanted to seem.

But, Jordan hadn't cracked yet. His mind was still fully intact.

Intact with Seamus'.

There was a scream inside of him that frightened him. And he knew Jordan could see the fear in his eyes.

They eyes intrigue me too, detective...

"What was Aleks jealous towards?" Seamus scraped bravery from the bottom of his barrel, having barely any left, he would crack before Jordan ever would, he knew. He repeated the question again as Jordan didn't immediately answer, simply just staring down at the two marks he had burned into the table. What effect he had...what he could do...that power...

Jordan kept his lips sealed as Seamus went to repeat the question a third time, wondering about Jordan's reluctance, and why now. Seamus took a breath, adjusting his thick framed glasses just as Jordan opened his mouth, the words and answer Seamus desired was given with an uncorrelated way.

"People like you used to be, detective." He spoke with an offset tone, not entirely in a mocking way, but Seamus could feel the criticism and insult rise off of the words like steam wanting to burn. And burn...it did. "People who have the one thing he never truly had." Jordan's eyes flicked to the other pair of blue. "Family." It was a thing to envy for Aleks. It was a thing to mourn for Seamus.

"Sure, he had a mother and father at some point in time, but that wasn't how he saw himself." He shook his head, Seamus understanding completely. You really never feel like you have what you do, even when it's gone, it doesn't make much of an impact. The things you have or had, you grow distant from, Seamus saw himself doing the same as Aleks, drifting away from family. And everytime he looked in the mirror, Seamus just saw an emptier face, an emptier heart, an emptier life.

Is that what Aleks saw in himself...?

Jordan licked his lips. "How he saw himself could be summed up in a perfect three words." He drew in a small breath, the air in the room turning chilly and cool, his lungs almost shivering due to the bitterness. "Orphaned. Adopted. Alone." Each one alone made their own sense, but together, they helped Seamus through the maze of Aleks' mind.

He was orphaned at the age of eight, just a year older than his own daughter. Reading his case file and reading it again, it said that Aleks grew depressed due to the death of his parents, an effect that was normal, but it was like a demon, laying dormant for years before it wakes up and begins to attack. He was sent to an orphanage for years, he had little to no friends, he was older than the rest, the others ranging from infants to about six years old.

The workers at the orphanage said that he was a quiet kid, didn't bother anybody, had no enemies, but had no companions. He spent most of his time drawing, reading, writing, or completing homework from school. Aleks was lonely there, and that's when some jealousy would rise up.

He would see children with their parents wherever he went, wondering why that couldn't be him, why it was him who had to live a life like this. He would also find jealousy in the other children, especially when they were getting adopted. It was always the younger, no parents wanted to adopt an older child, realizing that made Aleks' depression worsen, not to the point of it being a diagnoses, but to just remain more quiet than before.

But then, at the age of twelve, his life had changed for better and for worse. He was adopted by Katjaa and Arthur Marchant in early spring, they had found him to be a unique child, they loved him in an instant. His depression had gotten a little better once moving in with a new family, although he was an only child. But, as much as he loved his new parents, he was unable to call them mom and dad.

Because they really weren't.

His true parents were dead.

And it always panged either guilt, sorrow, or envy in him.

His sadness had disappeared for a while, he was growing up in a healthy, loving environment that he couldn't be more thankful for. But as he was growing older and able to live on his own, the unhappiness inside of him returned, and it didn't return alone. That jealousy came back, and this time it was harder to avoid.

Harder to fall victim of.

He was eighteen when it was time for him to move out, high school had ended, college would be starting up in a little while, and he was a full grown adult. It was time for him to start taking care of himself, as if he hadn't for those four years before. Things seemed to be going smoothly, he had found an apartment, a job that paid well, and was taking advanced college courses.

All of the advances and advantages he owned, but that depression in the back of his mind, that jealousy on the tip of his tongue still gunned him down. Bigger and bolder every time, always bigger and bolder. He was jealous of the advances and advantages of others.

Others had their parents always nearby. Aleks was orphaned.

Others were always picked up by family. Aleks was adopted.

Others had many to talk to, to talk with. Aleks was alone.

Three perfect words.

"He was different from everyone else." Jordan continued on, breaking down Aleks' complex character story by story, floor by floor, layer by layer. "He wanted...that normalcy, never learning that it was possible to get passed that hard time of his." Oblivious, another word Seamus called him, another word that fit him well.

Oblivious.

"Normalcy was possible, but his possessory attitude is what made it impossible." Circles. Aleks' ways were running and racing in circles, running and racing around a broken life. Circles. They were vicious ones indeed.

"It was his fault. He deserved it."

+++++++

He woke up cold.

That's all he could think, he was just so cold. He was shivering all over, afraid to open his eyes, he ley out a chilled breath, not needing to see it to know that it came out as a white puff onto the air. He was disoriented, his head pounding, not knowing where he was, what environment he was in, not wanting to look around and find out.

All he knew was that it was cold.

He let his other senses do the looking for him, there wasn't anything to taste or smell, but he could hear small sounds above all silence. There was a whirring in the background, faint, but nearby. A freezer, maybe, it made sense. A walk in freezer, the sound being a generator for the cold, the temperature somewhere in the twenties, most likely below.

He let out another breath, feeling it float against his face, but it wasn't the only thing he felt. He felt no heat encase him at all, not even from his clothing as he seemed to be stripped of all. He also felt that he couldn't move. His arms were positioned above him, bound together by something else cold, a chain, it was a chain, he heard the metal as he tried to break free. His legs were immobile, too, also chained, not together, but to the floor.

That's what made him open Aleks eyes.

He had been right, both of his feet were attached to the floor, metal cuffs around both, he could barely move his ankles let along life his foot. He hastily stared up, seeing his arms tied together at the wrists, the chain beginning to hurt him as he struggled to free his hands. He felt the panic set in, his head turning left and right, searching for something, someone to help, fearing for his life.

"Help! Help me!" Aleks yelled, his voice echoing off the walls surrounding him in the freezer, feeling his body shake more intensely, his heart about to shut down. "Help me! Help! Please! Someone! Someone help me! Please! Please!" He shouted again, trying again to tug from from his predicament, wanting and wishing that it was all just a bad dream.

"He kept shouting for help..." Jordan explained to the detective, telling the story from his eyes, those eyes as blue as a bluebird's feather. "They all did when they woke up...'help me, someone, please, help me...'" He paused. "They should have half a mind to know it never works..."

"Help me! Please! Help me!"

"When I came into the room, he was a sobbing mess...his tears almost frozen to his skin..." He went on, the thought of frozen tears making Seamus cringe. "He had given up on trying to get free, but he stopped completely when he heard him." Jordan was smiling with his words.

"He needed help. Yet, he was smart enough to know that I wasn't."

Aleks lifted his head to the sound of footsteps not only entering the room, but coming towards him. A good sign and a bad. He couldn't stop his shaking as those footsteps came closer, and closer, until he could see the feet that made them. Followed by the body. And then the face. That face that looked oh so smug, the face that appeared so pleased, the face that both angered, and frightened Aleks.

"Who are you?" Aleks asked with quivering lips, chattering teeth, and an unstable voice. Jordan kept his own mouth closed, leting Aleks blow off steam although all he felt was the bitter cold of eighteen degrees Fahrenheit. "Who the fuck are you?!?" Aleks screamed, Jordan having no reaction to the shouts. "What do you want from me?!?"

"Shh, shh, shh, don't get too worked up, Aleks." Jordan placidly responded, taking a seat in a chair he had placed earlier, his fingers nearly stick to it as he pulled it closer. The room brought out the blue of his eyes, how snide they appeared when stating deeply into Aleks' brown ones.

Ones that were filled with fear.

Aleks tried to break free again, writhing left and right, back and forth, his trembling body covered head to toe in goosebumps. "How do you know me?!?" He yelled again, Jordan not even flinching as he looked down at the frozen floor, a light layer of fog floating above it. "What did I do?!? I don't even know you!"

That caught Jordan's ears, a smile spreading across his face. "You're right, I'm so sorry." He apologized, taking in a cold breath, the air turning it even more bitter. "My name's Jordan." He introduced himself to the naked man before him, seeing the scare in his eyes dress up with rage. 

Beautiful.

"I don't give a fuck what your name is!" Aleks screamed, on the verge of tears yet again, his eyes welling up. "Let me go!" He begged, only hurting himself in trying to pull his arms free.

"Why?" Jordan quietly asked, his calm voice easing Aleks in the strangest of ways. "So you can...," He he waved his hand around as he thought of the words, "...return to your day to day rut?" He questioned, his wonders rhetorical. "Hiding in the shadows as you envy those in the light."

He ran his teeth over his bottom lip.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Aleks, almost silently, asked, his words quiet due to the cold, he couldn't feel much of anything anymore, everything just fading...turning numb...both painful and painless as the same time.

Jordan took another breath. "I'm talking about your life." He answered, his tone putting down Aleks, as if his topic was the blatant obvious. Aleks kept quiet. "The life you have wasted, abused, taken advantage of of in the wrong of ways. All possible advances at your fingertips, but you push them all away." All that could be heard was the distant droning of the freezer as Jordan stole a breath.

"I did hear you call for help, right?" He asked without expecting an answer, Aleks being too cold, scared, and stubborn. The answer was undoubtedly a yes as Jordan sighed, nodding his head. "You never wanted any before." He pointed out. "Why is it we're willing to change only when a life is at stake?"

"How the hell do you know me?" Aleks barged in, ignoring the words Jordan threw at him or delivered on a silver platter, his headache in his ears, behind his eyes, consuming his skull as he refused to listen. "How in the fucking hell did you find me? Why me? Why are you doing this to me?!?" Aleks asked on and on, his body skaing in and on, over and over, his heart dying a little more.

Jordan kept a firm eye on Aleks, knowing he made no mistake in taking him. "There's no point in shouting, I'm only trying to talk to you." Jordan informed the other, again, in that patronizing tone of mock and derision. Aleks' words seemed to freeze in his throat, sticking to it and nearly clogging his airway.

"H-How do you know me...?" He asked without an attitude, feeling his shine suffer shivers from up and down. Every organ inside of him was trembling, his heart beating against his lungs, clattering against his ribs, the pain being sensitive and ceaseless.

Jordan appreciated the attempt from the other of relaxation. "An accident." He answered, opening a drawer inside of the freezer's tables, his hand pausing as he spoke again. "It was just a coincidence of fate, being at the same place at the same time." He placed his hand inside of the drawer and slowly pulled out a remote control, it being covered somewhat in particles of ice and slight snow.

"It could have been anyone else in the world, anyone else in that place..." He closed the drawer quietly while keeping the remote in his hands, the flesh of his hands being slightly ripped off from the temperature and ice. "But it was you who I saw something inside of." Jordan eyes met his victim's once again. "I saw...that...envy..." He described, watching the other shake and shiver.

Aleks' face grew from petrifyingly quiet to outraged and mistaken. "Envy?!?" He screamed, all being heard now was the remains of his voice on and in the walls. "Envy?!? I don't envy a god damned thing!" He yelled, tugging at his confides again, trying to somehow, somehow, escape from this horror.

But, if he were to, then what?

Jordan's face turned serious and scolding, losing what little faith he had in his subject. Therein lies the doubt... He flipped a switch on his controller with a sudden jolt, annoyance and vexation in his eyes. As Jordan pulled the switch, water from two nozzles, one to Aleks' left and the other to Aleks' right, began to spray water onto the victim, slowly beginning to freeze him to death.

Aleks screamed in utmost pain, his heart starting to give way, he could feel ot himself. "Stop! Stop it! Stop!" He begged, feeling himself cry again. He couldn't feel anything anymore, his arms, his legs, only the beating in his chest that slowly decreasing by each drip and drop of water. "Please! Stop!"

Jordan lowered the switch, ending the source for now, the water coming to an end as Aleks hung his head down in defeat, regaining small percentages of his senses and willpower. "Help me!" He screamed, wanting someone to hear him, someone to help him, someone to just even notice his misery at this point. "Please! Someone! Help!" His shoulders rose and fell the best they could as he wept.

Jordan dug his nails into the plastic of the remote. "Stop shouting, Aleksandr. Only I can hear you." He reminded him, his voice holding back yells and shouts of his own, yells and shouts towards the freezing one.

Aleks' lips could barely keep still as he tried to speak again. "W-What...what do-do you wa-want from m-m-me?" He was able to ask, keeping his head bowed to his feet, terrified of meeting Jordan's stone cold eyes. He let out breath after breath, cloud after cloud into the bitter air.

Jordan was quiet a moment. "It depends." He replied, Aleks finding the courage to raise his head up. "What are you willing to give?" He answered with a question, Aleks afraid of the answer as he saw Jordan toying with the switch in a taunting manner, flaunting it in front of Aleks' desperate face, dangling it, torturing him just a bit more.

He eased his shaking for a moment to speak. "W-What ever...what e-ever you w-want..." Aleks stuttered, wanting to feel a fire in his bones, but only met with a frostbitten vengeance of nearly below freezing temperatures. In Jordan's eyes, it was the fate Aleks deserved.

Jordan stifled a sarcastic laugh, amused with Aleks' tries and hopeless attempts. "Bribery?" He clarified, his eyebrows raised. "Giving me what I want to benefit yourself?" The edges of his lips curled into a smile, a smile that Aleks couldn't stand to see as he closed his eyes, it being easier than to keep them open. Jordan didn't speak again for a moment, the quiet beginning to eat away at Aleks again, it only making Jordan's grin turn into a beam.

"That's quite foolish, really." He commented, feeling small and freckled bumps spread across his own skin. He ignored them. "To pay for control instead of taking it yourself." His eyes studied Aleks' body up and down. "Giving your money away to...win an election, get a raise, move up on the totem pole of well being meanwhile losing something of yourself." Aleks could only listen, though his ears were losing then ability to.

"And you're wanting to pay a man to spare what can be loosely called your life." He shook as his head, despising, he fell below Aleks for his gruesome acts, but towered over him once the table had turned, who was truly good? Who was truly bad? There's a little in everybody, sometimes it's hard to tell which was stronger, the good, the bad, the mystery of either, of each.

He shook his head, despising.

"I thought you were smarter than that, Aleks." Jordan reasoned, Aleks lifting his head slightly, feeling sick to his stomach, one of the few things he could still feel. "You stopped shouting because you knew who I was. You're trying to bribe me for help." Jordan seemed to freeze himself, his entire body still. "I'm not help." He placed emphasis on his last three words before flipping the switch a second time.

"Ah! God! Stop it! Ow! Stop!" Aleks screamed, throwing his head back as he yelled, unable to cry any more, tears frozen to the ducts as he just wept. "Stop! Please! Please stop! Jordan! Jordan! Stop...!" Tge use of his own name forced Jordan to end the torture for now, Aleks' body drenched, some of his muscles and body completely frozen or beginning to do so. It was a pain so indescribable.

"Help me!" Aleks cried out, he wasn't even sure to whom anymore, he knew no one would save him. This was where his life would end, in the cold hands of a killer. "Someone! Help! Please help!" He groaned due to the pain, unable to move his back anymore, his spine an icicle. "Help!"

"Stop with the yelling!" Jordan screamed, Aleks keeping his blue lips sealed, he could barely see out of his eyes anymore, if what he saw could even be labeled as vision. He couldn't stop the shaking, the nape of his neck frozen, too, he almost couldn't move. He couldn't move. Barely even breathe as his heart grew weaker and weaker, Jordan himself growing stronger and stronger.

Aleks opened his mouth, all that came out at first was struggling breaths, some of the last Aleks would ever take. "Y...Y...Y-You're f-fucked up-up." Aleks managed to say, knowing his end was near, his organs shutting down one by one. Candles blowing out as Aleks breathed in the smoke, breathed in the smoke with his last few breaths.

"Am I, now?" Jordan wondered, running his hands over the remote control.

"Y...You're fu-fucked u-up-up in th-t-the he-head..." Aleks reiterated with a dying breath, unable to move his head to look Jordan in the eye, unable to see clearly to look into Jordan's eyes, unable to open his own eyes anymore.

He heard the sound of Jordan standing up from his chair, his senses, again, heightening, but fading away like his life. "And?" Jordan wondered, a slight shiver heard with his words. "So what if that makes me sink below you?" The footsteps were growing nearer to him. "At least I have reason to live."

His jaw shook up and down as he tried to speak, speaking his last words as Aleksandr Marchant. "W...What re-reason?" He asked, feeling the life in himself recede.

The footsteps stopped just in front of Aleks, he could feel Jordan's breath on his forehead, it was cold, but still warmer than himself. The last warmth he'd feel was from the breath of a killer, the breath of his killer. "The reason?" Jordan repeated, his voice low and deep. "Beings like you."

He flipped the switch for the third and final time

+++++++

Seamus couldn't even meet eyes with Jordan anymore, each murder making Jordan sink lower and lower as a human being himself, each confession being a step closer in closing the case, in owning the evidence in his conviction. Each confession making Seamus' stomach churn with guilt in every pain.

Every murder meant that there was a life that was stolen, a life, lives, that Seamus couldn't save.

And there he was, wanting someone to save him.

He was wanting help.

I'm not help...

"He froze to death moments later." Jordan concluded, swallowing a clump of saliva in his throat. "His body was still shivering after he died." Seamus closed his eyes to escape the horror that was melting around him, dripping down the walls as if he were encased in a room of wax, the heat, steam, flames burning him alive.

The pain was indescribable...

He felt like he was burning to death, Aleks froze to death, one of the cruelest ways there was. He couldn't imagine the fear Aleks owned, the fear James owned, having to deal with that amount of pain. To have your body shut down from the cold, to have your limbs detached as you bathed in your own blood. To lose all feeling except that hurt, that torture, that agony that's as death itself knocking at the door. Death itself draining your blood, death itself benumbing your heart, death itself being in everything you've ever known.

But not knowing whether you were dead or alive was the true pain.

Knowing you were dying was misery.

Knowing you were living a relief.

Knowing neither...was Seamus.

He opened his eyes, lifting his head from his hands as he let out a slow breath, himself living in slow life, everything around him leisured, ginger, steady, but frantic. What case had he been introduced to? What kind of person was this? What kind of killer? Why these seven victims? Why these certain deaths, these cruel, brutal, insensitive deaths? Freezing? Delimbing?

...Seamus didn't think he could bear to hear the others...

He found the trouble in opening his mouth to speak, feeling own lips tremble as he tried. "Where are the bodies?" He desperately asked, needing to avenge the hurt souls he blamed himself for. "Where did you take them?" Where did you take their lives...?

Jordan smiled.

He looked down at his watch.

Seamus flinched at the sound of knocking on the room door, it knocking him out of his disturbed manner, 'save me, save me' he begged. A scare did. A knock did. Eddie did as he opened the door and stepped him, his eyes transfixed on Jordan's for a moment before trailing to his partner's.

"Seamus?" He asked, he didn't seem worried, concerned, or anxious, just calm. He always so calm. "You should be getting home. Stef and Liz..." He didn't finish as there was an outsider in the room, the outsider being the sickest man Seamus ever met, and an even nastier monster. The most vicious killer.

One right below Ashley's.

Don't think that, Sea...don't you dare...she's still out there, she's still alive, waiting for you to save her...and you will...you'll find her, she'll be okay, she'll be better than okay...just keeping looking...you have to keep looking, Seamus...

Seamus sighed as his gaze fell away from Eddie's to the floor, nodding his head as he should be heading home, home to the family he had, to cherish them, to take care of them, to spend some true time with them instead of forgetting about them for her. For her...it was all for her... His eyes then traveled up to Jordan's, but it wasn't the eyes that held what intrigued him.

It was that devilish smirk on his tan face.

Seamus felt threatened by it as turned back to Eddie, standing himself up from his seat. "Keep him awake." He muttered to the other, knowing the longer Jordan was awake, his mind would lose its edge, the wittiness, the threat, the cement wall that wouldn't chip away. Jordan was already tired. That was a good start.

Seamus walked past his friend and out of the interrogation room, out into the offices to see the sun had long gone set, the dark blue sky shining into the room just to show how long he had been gazing into the eyes of that serial killer. "Sea." He heard Eddie's voice call him as he turned around, his friend, indeed, following after him.

Eddie sighed. "Hey, Sea, um...you doing alright?" He asked as Seamus picked his jacket up from off of the back of his chair. "Just...with this new case and everything..." Eddie explained, unable to get the words out, but his point made it through to the other. Seamus appreciated the attempt as he smiled lightly, it being half of a cover up, half...real.

It did, but didn't feel right.

Seamus nodded his head, placing his jacket back upon his shoulders as he answered. "I'll be okay." He told his friend, seeing that sympathy wash over his brown eyes again. "This case is as new to me as it is to you." He reassured, shutting down his computer for the night, just wanting to get home.

To Liz.

To Stefani.

"And you're doing a great job." Eddie complimented, smiling a little himself at that. "I'm glad to know that detective's still in there." He chuckled lightly as Seamus simply smiled, a little pleased himself, but still having trouble with returning to the past. His past. His past life, his past job, his past self. It felt odd crawling back into that shell...

"Hey, uh, tell Stef I said hi." Eddie changed the subject. "She's a really great girl, really brave, Sea." Seamus giggled lightly, agreeing without a word. "Gets that from you, I'm sure." Seamus simply nodded, fatigue setting in from the realization and rush of time, his bags darker and heavier, he could feel them almost brand his skin.

"I'll...make sure to tell her." Seamus agreed, smiling at his friend. Eddie grinned back, relieved to see that smile form on his partner's face again, it was a sight to ease his heart for the night, just knowing that Seamus was okay. Ever since the happening to Ash, Eddie had kept a firm eye on Seamus. Not as a suspect to the cade, but...as a victim.

He had been the one to tell Seamus, and throughout the years of their friendship, he had never seen Seamus break like that, to the point where he almost couldn't breathe on his own. The pain this man went through, that harsh reality and the aftermath of it all, Eddie could only imagine such a pain.

It also left Seamus to act unlike himself.

Some days he was quiet, some days he couldn't stop talking, it was always about her, his words. Some days he was stable, some days he was unpredictable, ending in muffled yells at himself, suffering in silence, or tears to stream down his face. Some days he was okay. Some days, okay was a dream.

And some night, Eddie fought himself to call Seamus just to see if things were okay. At times, he was afraid to. He knew...the littlest of things could set Seamus off...

...even just a phone call to see how he was holding up...

To know he was okay meant the world to Eddie.

Seamus nodded again. "I'll be seeing you."

~~~~~~~~

He placed his beer bottle back down, nearly empty already as he sighed, debating on whether to get a second. A third. To see if he could go beyond that, his limit of three beers ever so often. He rested his head on his hand, his lungs breathing slower and slower, feeling as if they were sinking in his chest.

No matter what, he felt pain.

He tried concentrating back on the case file in front of him, knowing he was safe at home, but feeling as if he were back in that room with everything watching him, the eyes from behind that mirror, the security camera, Jordan. He felt that pressure, his confidence being lost to it all, his mind scrambled, thoughts lost, and head pounding.

He sighed exasperatedly, trying to cool himself down as he fumbled beneath the papers in the tan folder. He found a notepad, picking a pen up from the left of him as he began to write down his thoughts, the key information given about the victims and possible location of the bodies. Perhaps a real connection.

James Wilson

He wrote, taking the final sip from his beer as he continued to write.

James Wilson, dismembered alive, wrath.

He himself was wrath.

He began to write below that.

Aleksandr Marchant

Seamus shivered a the name.

Aleksandr Marchant, frozen, ...

"James was wrath..." Seamus muttered under his breath, tapping his own against the white lined paper he was using. "What were you...?" He questioned aloud to the deceased, his voice even quieter than a whisper as he tried to think.

"He owned jealousy until he became jealousy..." Jordan's words rang in his ears.

His hand paused with the tapping. "Jealousy...jealousy...envy?" He pondered as he wrote again, blue ink from the pen staining the side of his hand, as small as the amount may be.

Aleksandr Marchant, frozen, envy.

"Wrath...and...envy...?"

He jumped at the sudden addition of a voice.

"Daddy?"

He looked away from his words to the nearby hallway, seeing Stefani awake, but just barely. She rubbed at her eye as she yawned, her hair pushed to the side and slightly frizzed, but she looked adorable. She took a few steps closer to her father, her legs owning goosebumps from the chilly air of January, and the fact she was wearing a nightgown.

"Hey, sweetpea." He whispered to his daughter, seeing the exhaust she owned and empathizing. "What are you doing up so late? You have school tomorrow, sweetie." He reminded her as she met him by his chair, stil trying to get the sleep out of her eyes.

She simply shrugged to answer his question. "I couldn't sleep." Stefani replied as Seamus cooed at her. He picked the seven year old and placed her onto his lap, her head resting against his chest as he placed his head lightly atop hers.

"That's okay, sweetheart." He sighed, rocking her lightly as he closed his eyes, feeling his own weariness double over. He opened them slightly, half lidded, but still able to see, looking down at his daughter, herself beginning to drift off again. He smiled at her, remembering before when Stefani had trouble sleeping. Ashley always carried her around her room, humming to her softly, songs of a lullaby to the younger's ears.

It had almost been a month without hearing those hums.

Seamus started to, quietly, knowing he could replace Ashley, but just trying his best to be the next best thing. A father who cared. He hummed lightly as he closed his eyes again, needing to get to sleep himself as he held his daughter close, still wondering the same question of how the two had even gotten here.

Stefani opened her brown eyes slightly, holding back another yawn as she looked to the right of her to the kitchen table, more specifically, to the attractions on top. Her eyes followed the many scattered papers Seamus had laid out, the words, facts, pictured, evidence. The notes Seamus took, barely making sense to the girl, but she understood them.

But her eyes then found the sight of that beer bottle.

Everytime she saw her father drink, she knew he was hurting again. Most times, his pain was tolerable as he would just sweep it away or, at times, cry it out. But when it got really bad, he drank. He drank until he passed out, it was always that magical number of three that did it. She hated seeing her father in pain. But, perhaps, tonight was different.

They're weren't three beer bottles laying down on the table.

There was only one.

It may have been empty, but there was only one.

Maybe, Stef thought, maybe he was getting better. Bit by bit, day by day. Maybe he was getting better. And tomorrow, he would be a little more. Better.

But to Seamus, tomorrow only left twenty four hours with Jordan.

Tomorrow was day twenty six.


	8. The Definition Of Lonely

He jolted awake in a cold sweat, waking up even chilled that morning. He shook to the core, sitting himself up from his bed, his body greeting the cold weather in the nastiest of ways, with goosebumps and shivering. And another nightmare to haunt him for ages, for days and days to come.

It was about her again, that beautiful girl he once called his wife. He still does, she is his wife, she's alive, she's alive... It was just a bad dream, it doesn't mean anything...it won't come true...it was just a dream... He was searching through their house, upstairs, down, in and out of every room. It wasn't cold, nor warm, all he could feel was that he was scared.

And her name vibrating off of his vocal chords out into the air.

Ashley, Ashley, where are you, was all he repeated, again and again, he couldn't stop himself, it was all he could say, all he could hear, all he could think in his clouded and crowded mind. He kept thinking, he knew, she wasn't here, she wasn't home, but he couldn't control himself. He kept looking, searching, failing to find her. Ash, where did you go, Ashley...

But...his heart stopped dead in his chest as he opened his own bedroom door.

There she was, Ashley, his beautiful wife of almost nine years, her brown eyes, her brown hair, her light skin, precious lips, lovely figure. There she was...and there she wasn't... She was there...her body...but not her soul... He ran up to her, her body laying in a pool of her own blood, that terrifying sight of her eyes still open haunting him.

He picked up her body, still shouting her name, kneeling in her blood, letting it stain his flesh as the memory stained his heart, he felt black and blue bruises, but all he saw was red. He held her close to him, he couldn't stop the screaming, he couldn't stop the crying. He shook as he held the corpse of his wife, her lifeless body being contagious to himself, feeling the life in him fade.

His eyes then trailed to her hand, it was like a white swan swimming atop a lake, a lake of burgundy red that her heart let out, her heart that could not longer pump, no longer bleed, no longer love. But her hand wasn't the innocent, pure swan it appeared, it had been branded by another to make it hideous and adulterated.

There, on her palm, were etched the words, "She deserved it, Detective O'Doherty".

He jolted awake in a cold sweat.

He felt a light layer of tears consume his eyes, he hated crying this early in the morning, he hated crying altogether, but now it was just a regular part of his daily schedule. Whether the cause being the nightmares, the loneliness, the dead quiet, or the beating of his aching heart. His background noise. It hurt to cry, each tear feeling like a shard of glass pouring out of his duct, and a drip of acid sliding down his cheek.

That pain brought the inside of him to the out.

Maybe it wasn't the beer that did it.

Perhaps, it was just Seamus himself...

He sucked in a breath to ease his nerves, stretching out his neck as he turned to the left, his breath lost as it fell to a sigh, his shoulder slumping and eyes holding back another threat of tears. He had done it again, it had only happened a few times, but it hurt him worse each time. The left side of the bed was always his, where he rested his pounding head at night, and where he'd wake up too early in the morning.

That morning, and a few mornings in the past, we woke up on the right.

Her side of the bed.

Every night, the bed would grow colder, he'd still shiver under the layers of sheets and blankets. And he'd scoot a bit closer to the right, not by much, just get warmer. He'd move a little closer the next night, just a bit further to the right. And again the next night. And the next. Until he found himself waking up in her spot on the bed, what warmth it used to hold, he kept inching closer to feel that warmth, but all in all, he was just getting colder.

That night, he'd sleep on the left side, his side. And he'd do it all again, he was like the platen of a typewriter, moving to the side until it was needed to be pushed back. And the story he wrote was one from the heart, one from his misery, one with an ending he could only dread about. An ending that was, truly, unknown.

Unknown.

The unknown scared him.

He sniffed lightly as he left his bed, following step after step from days past to the bathroom, doing the same thing everyday at the same time, his schedule. Except, the crying came whenever it wished, flowing in and out of his life without a warning, nor a goodbye. He flicked on the lights as he stopped at the sink, placing both hands on either side of it to balance himself.

He let out yawn as he lifted his head, staring at a strangely familiar face in the mirror, one that looked like his own, but one he barely recognized. Who was Seamus O'Doherty? He asked himself this question, it standing out upon many, all he couldn't answer, or didn't even attempt to. Who was he? What would become of him? What had happened to his life? How could he even live anymore?

Was he dead? Was he alive?

He was tired, that was for sure. Tired of everything and just tired in general. He just needed some sleep, the bags beneath his eyes seeming to be permanent. Just to lay in that bed without his mind thinking about anything, to smile, to relax, even if it weren't that long of time to sleep, he just wanted deep and well. No nightmares, no waking up without reason, no tossing and turning.

And warmth from a being next to him.

Her next to him.

He yawned again.

He was upset, last night's events taking an extra hard toll on him this morning. After Stefani had fallen back asleep, Seamus carried her back to room, to see her face so at peace with her dreaming calmed and touched his heart. And also broke it after he placed her back in her bed, tucking her in for the night.

Stefani was so innocent, she hadn't done anything to anybody, but still, she was met with a life as cruel as her father's. No family support during a time as such, only her aunt who, on the inside, was frail herself. She didn't have a mother anymore, ends could have been met if Ash had passed away of certain causes, but her life was still hanging in the balance twenty six days later.

To grow up without a feminine and motherly figure was tough, to not have someone there to bond with on a gender based level. She had her aunt, she had her friends, but that special bond with her mother was what she was missing. Would she ever get it back? Another answer that hung in the balance.

She also barely had a father anymore, someone who could make her laugh, smile, make her feel good about herself, and protect her from manifestations of her imagination. To hold her when she cried, to help her if she needed any, to push her towards her goals and be there for her if she suffered a failure of bad time. These were attributes a father should possess, if not master.

Seamus felt like a ghost just drifting past her life.

Ghosts. Demons. Shadows.

Everyone has them.

I have them, you have them, Edwin, Stefani...

He was scared.

Scared of going back to work today, of returning to that interrogation room, to return to the identity of a fearless officer, but fearless was something he used to be. He was scared. He didn't want to sit down in that chair, he didn't want to smell that tobacco and nicotine, he didn't want to deal with that uneasiness and anxiety.

He didn't want to see the outside or inside of those blue eyes.

Those blue eyes that saw the faults inside of Seamus' soul, those eyes that could count the weak spots on his heart, those eyes that held their own mysterious pain that Seamus could empathize with. The eyes of Jordan Mathewson, those eyes that were a blood stain bleeding through Seamus' skin. Flooding his lungs, filling his eyes, spitting it up.

Those eyes.

Those hands.

He was scared of those hands.

What acts those hands committed, the laws they broke, the lives they stole. What they were stained with, tears, blood, traces of the decaying flesh of his victims. What two simple units were capable of, what pain they could cause. They seemed innocent and clean, long fingers, delicate touch, nails bitten until blunt.

Those hands took control of the blade that severed James Wilson. Those hands instructed the remote that froze Aleksandr Marchant. Seamus was scared to think of what else those hands did. To Daniel Gidlow...to Joe Esten...to Kevin McFarlane... 

Seamus took a breath as he shook his head, taking a look in the mirror, the first thing drawing his attention were his own eyes. He rubbed at them to wake them up, but his attempts only made them look deader, eyes were the windows to the soul, but his eyes only peered into darkness dwelling inside of him.

But, there was something else in his eyes that forced him to keep looking, it wasn't just his face that he did and didn't recognize, it was more or less the eyes. There was something different about them, they seemed to be lighter than he remembered, that shade being one he saw before, but not in his own eyes. His looked more like...Jordan's....

And so did his face. His hair wasn't that light blond it always was, it looked brown, felt lighter, made him feel anxious. His skin wasn't so pale anymore as it was a pink color of tan. He fell further and further away from himself until it wasn't his face reflected in the mirror. It was Jordan's.

In you is the ability to understand me.

He would own the ability...until he became the ability...

Was he becoming Jordan...?

Seamus sucked in a breath as he turned away from the mirror, feeling himself shake from something else other than the winter temperature. He closed his eyes, feeling lightheaded as his stomach tied itself into knots, himself getting weaker. He refused to believe he was turning into the personality of a killer, he only understood him because his profession advised him to.

Then why he identify himself with Jordan? Why did he agree? Why did he feel anything towards him, especially that sympathy for his pain?

It was as if he were feeling sorry for himself.

Who was he? Seamus O'Doherty? Or Jordan Mathewson?

Seamus let out a shivery breath as he left the bathroom, taking one, two, three steps to the bedroom door, and another ten down the hallway. He inhaled in through his nose, exhaled out through his mouth to ease himself, but it wasn't his breathing pattern that made him okay for now.

It was the sight of his seven year old daughter making breakfast for the two of them.

Stefani placed down a bowl on the table as she heard footsteps enter the room, her small smile growing to a large one as she saw her father standing in the hallway, an astounded look on his face when seeing what she was doing. "Hi, daddy!" She exclaimed as she ran towards Seamus, arms wide open for a hug.

Seamus chuckled lightly as he knelt down to her height, holding her close as she met his arms, thankful for another morning he got to see her. In pain for another morning he didn't get to see his wife. "Hey, sweetheart." He whispered to her, kissing her cheek as she giggled lightly, just a simple sound let him know she was alright. "How'd you sleep last night, Stef?" He asked as they pulled away from one another, seeing more of Ashley in his daughter than anything.

She smiled brightly, even her grin resembled her mother's in every aspect. "Really good!" She answered, and this time it had been the truth. She had missed hearing soft hums as she drifted to sleep, the silence wouldn't do it for her. Just to hear some sort of lullaby was enough, but to hear it from her father sent her off to a good nights rest.

She turned around in her father's arms and pointed to the kitchen table gleefully. "And I made breakfast!" She told him as he laughed lightly, he couldn't remember the last time he saw his daughter so happy. Even if it was just for the morning, it was a miracle. She turned back to face her father. "I would have made coffee, but I really don't know how to." Her face wore a puzzled look as she spoke, a face that made Seamus kiss her forehead again and again.

"Aw, that's okay, Stef." He told her, feeling that well needed warmth of love encase him, his goosebumps barely visible. "You've done enough already, thank you, buttercup." He wrapped his arms around Stefani again, holding her a bit more closely than last time, grateful for the family he still had. "This is so sweet of you, honey." He whispered, giving her cheek a kiss again.

"Here, let's go get some breakfast." He told her as Stefani laughed, letting go of her father's grasp as she headed towards the table. She sat at the head of the table on her knees in order to reach the table, she was small considering she was only seven. Seamus made his way to the kitchen, lifting the coffee pot from the built in burner and placing it under the faucet.

He turned his head towards the table to see Stefani, he couldn't help, but smile as she scooped at her cereal while coloring, it felt like forever since he had seen his daughter. Which...it actually had been forever. With all the stress and 'work' he had been dealing with and doing, he pushed away everything else he had in his life, refusing to take care of it until it was whole again.

It was a mistake.

A mistake he wanted to fix.

This had been the first real morning, the first real time, Stefani and Seamus had gotten to spend any time with each other, something Stefani was pleased about and something Seamus was thankful for. The more he saw his daughter progress, the more he wanted to be a father to help her. Her father.

He swallowed lightly. "How's school been going, Stef?" He wondered as he placed the pot back on the burner, pushing down the lid to the coffee grind compartment. He flipped the switch as the machine turned on, turning around the greet his daughter who wore a surprised smile.

Stefani knew her father was trying, trying to return to bright colors in a dull, pale life. Trying to bring back the sun to a cold, crumbling world. Trying to repair the bond between daughter and father. She smiled at that, appreciating his efforts. "Very good and fun!" She answered as Seamus took a seat next to his daughter, a bowl of cereal in front of him which marked his seat.

"Our class is going to be raising monarch butterflies in the spring!" She explained, Seamus giggling at her enthusiasm. One of the precious things in her childhood he tried his best to preserve, not only was it good for her to own it, it left something for Seamus to hold onto. He swore the only reason he was still stable was because of her. Sh already was growing up without a mother.

She couldn't afford to lose her father, too.

"And I have all A's in my classes!" She continued on, smiling brightly at her achievements. "I'm really good at spelling! I know how to spell precipitation and environment!" She told her father, scooping her spoon back into her light blue bowl, pronouncing both words like the first grader she was. Seamus shook his head as he smiled, amazed to see how bright his daughter was.

"That's really great sweetheart! I'm proud of you!" He complimented her as he kissed her forehead, feeling his smile become the realest it had ever been. Stefani was smart for the age of seven, the top of her class, considering it was only first grade. She knew advanced addition, complicated words, could read at a forth grade level, and remembered half of her times tables.

And where most kids were left stumped, Stefani understood.

That counted for the lives of adults, too.

Stefani understood.

"You're so smart, Stef." He commented, smiling at her. "I'm glad to hear you're doing so well." He chuckled as he stood up from his seat, the coffe pot ending the rumbling and boiling of water to let Seamus know it was finished.

"What side of the family do I get that from?" He heard Stefani ask from behind him. "My in...in-int-in..." She stuttered, Seamus giggling as he poured his drink into a mug, the scent of coffee waking him up a bit more.

"Intelligence?" He corrected her, turning his head towards her as she nodded, a shy smile expressing itself on her blushing face. He turned back around to his drink, debating on whether or not to add cream and sugar, sighing lightly in just leaving it black. "I'd say you get that from your mom's side," He replied as he made his way back to his seat, steam floating from his cup, "she is pretty smart, you know."

Not 'she was'. She is.

She is.

"But you're a detective, daddy!" Stefani defended her father, her brown eyes glimmering just like her mother's, Seamus holding back tears as he didn't dare show the pain. "Aren't detectives supposed to be smart?" She laughed with her words, Seamus only doing the same to prevent himself from crying.

He sighed, still forcing a smile. "They are," he agreed, "but I don't think I could ever be as smart as you." The two chuckled at that, Seamus being pleased in listening to his daughter's laughs, just hearing them made life worth living. "You want to have my job?" He joked, Stefani shaking her head as she tried to hide her laughter behind her hands. "And I can go to school and teach monarchs how to spell precipitation?"

"That's silly, daddy!" Stefani chortled, calming her laughter as she placed her arms onto the table, leaving her coloring book be for now. Seamus sighed happily as he took a sip from his mug, feeling more than tasting the hot, bitter liquid slide down his throat. Stefani frowned slightly when the quiet arose, she had had enough of the quiet.

The quiet was all she ever heard anymore, a constant in her life as well as her father's. When her aunt would pick her up from school, the car ride was silent, barely any conversation. When she arrived home, the house was quiet, not even the creaks and moans of the house seemed to speak. The daytime was quiet as it faded to night, no birds since it was winter, no crickets, not surrounding their house, and the snow just covered up any sounds that tried to be heard.

Ashley! Ashley, where are you?!?

It was even quieter at night, though. Her father would come home and he'd rarely speak more than a full sentence, Stef knew he needed the company, but there were things a seven year old and a thirty five year old just don't discuss. And the quiet made it impossible to fall asleep. Usually there would be cars passing by on the road, the wind whistling through the trees, or perhaps sounds inside of the house such as a leaky faucet or rattling pipes.

But the quiet was all she ever heard anymore.

And some nights, she could hear her father crying in the room, saying her name, saying her name over and over.

Ashley...Ash...Ashley...

It's all she ever heard anymore.

She had had enough of the quiet.

"How's work, daddy?" She questioned, Seamus taking the question by surprise. It was the last thing he expected a seven year old to ask, for a seven year old to understand. His job on a day to day basis was stressful, even more now as he was struggling to tell a different between his home life and his work life. His job was on edge, balancing two cases, one that terrified him, and one he doubted in.

He would find her...right?

Those were things he thought Stefani wouldn't be interested in, she'd leave them alone, become oblivious to them, be unable to comprehend life as an adult, life as Seamus'. But she did. And she was living a hard life just beside him. It was truly he who had left that truth alone, he became oblivious to it, he was unable to comprehend how hard Stefani took everything anymore.

Seamus had shattered after the happening.

Stefani was trying to glue the pieces back together.

She tried not to cry when she got cut.

Seamus was quiet a moment before replying to his daughter. "It's...It's getting better." He answered, seeing his daughter smile at that. Better...he'd be better...things would be better... "I, uh, I actually was just given a new case, and..." He got lost in his thoughts, specifically his memory, retracing his steps from last night until that morning.

Where did he put that folder? That file? That information? He had it on the table the evening prior, and Stefani had come out, distracting him, relieving him. She had fallen back asleep, Seamus taking her back to her room, placing her in her bed, making sure she was warm, safe, and secure. He had spent longer than he needed to watching over her, pondering how in the hell they got so distant.

It was his fault, really.

He had went to bed moments later, leaving the files, pictures, and papers out on the table.

He turned his head, trying to think it over again, but he had found what he was looking for. There, on the counter, was the folder, everything placed neatly inside, just waiting for him to pick up as he headed in for his shift from ten to eight. He knew it wasn't him who had done that. It had been the smaller figure in his arms with the smaller tears bleeding through his shirt.

Stefani had put it there, she placed it away, but as any curious child should do, she looked inside. The files and biographies, the notes and observations, the names, numbers in the system, and the awful ways they died. The photos of their faces...the severed hand... All horrors Seamus had tried blinding his daughter from, only to be another failure by a simple mistake.

He kept making one right after another right after another.

Stefani followed his gaze to the tan folder, picking up the hints that Seamus knew she looked inside. She had been introduced to that mature and sinister part of the world, as if she already hadn't. She lowered her eyes back to her cereal bowl, needing to keep the innocent act up, pretending as if the contents in that folder didn't affect her.

"What about mommy's case?" She asked her father, bringing his attention back to her, taking his mind off of the elephant in the room. Stefani saw a little relief in his eyes as she spoke off of the topic, but worry was soon to overlap it, it looked like blood trying to balance with water. The blood always won.

Seamus licked his lips as he cleared his throat, his hands shaking a bit as he thought of an answer, he wasn't too comfortable talking about Ashley, especially to his daughter. It was one of his weak spots, perhaps a spot more feeble than his heart. He licked his lips again. "Daddy's just...taking a small break from mommy's case." Was the truth, but also a lie.

He placed his hand on her tiny shoulder. "But hey, don't worry." He assured her, she pulled up the facade of innocence as her father held one up of stability. Her's was strong as his was see through. "We'll find her, she's going to be okay, sweetie." He gave a small smile at the end, it gave hope, but held doubt itself.

Stefani nodded as Seamus removed his hand, her head bowing down at the table top. She listened to her father's words, but she could see how frail they were, he didn't hold much confidence behind them, he wasn't sure. He said she was going to be okay.

Going to be.

What about now?

Stefani lifted her head slightly, letting words she tried to hold back slip through. She hadn't meant to say them, but seeing her father as dependent as himself, it was beginning to weigh down on Stefani. And as she said them, and after, her eyes began to water immediately.

"I miss mommy."

Seamus looked over to her, sighing sadly before his head drifted away, his eyes drifting to the third chair at the table. The one Ashley always sat at, where she'd sleepily eat her breakfast while looking through her photos from the previous wedding. The one where she'd make lunch for the three of them on the weekends with the tv on in the background. The one where they'd share a nice dinner with the stars shining through the window, where they'd talk about their days, how boring or fun they were, where'd the couple would steal glances at one another while silently saying 'I love you'.

The one that was empty.

The one that might never be filled again.

Seamus let his head fall to his meal. "I miss her too, pumpkin." He whispered, unable to even look up at that chair anymore. Ashley left a lot of things behind, and it was sad that the majority were just memories to fade. "It's not the same without her." He shook his head, seeing Stefani frown from his corner of his eye.

Stefani sniffled. "Why would someone do that to her?" She asked as her voice wavered, holding back tears, she knew, that would stain her face within minutes. "Why did someone have to steal her?" Seamus turned his head towards her, feeling his eyebrows raise with sympathy for his daughter.

"I miss mommy so much!" She began to cry at that, taking after her father and just letting it all out. "I miss mommy! I just want her back, daddy! I just want her back...!" She raided her voice as she started to sob, Seamus trying to soothe her the best he could with his words. "It's not fair, daddy! It isn't fair!"

"Stefani, hey, shh, shh." He whispered to his daughter, picking her up from her chair, sighing as he placed her on his lap, holding her closely as he rocked her. "Please don't cry, sweetheart. Don't cry. Shh, shh." She wept into his shirt, holding onto her father tightly, the scene being all to familiar to Seamus.

It was exactly like when Seamus had to tell his daughter the honest truth about Ashley. It was hard to accept, hard to avoid, hard to talk about. The honest truth: Ashley had been kidnapped. Abducted, taken away, any and all synonyms down the line. Her whereabouts were unknown, her life was unknown, dead or alive, a question he'd pass onto Stefani with reluctance, but force.

He had never seen his daughter cry so much than right then. Her mother meant everything. Without her, barely anything had meaning.

How did they get this way...?

"Shh, shh, just try to breathe, Stef." He mumbled to the child in his arms, feeling his eyes sting with tears. "Don't cry, honey, I got you." Her sobs seemed to dial down as Seamus' wanted to start up, having a tear or two roll down his cheeks as he took a breath himself. Just try to breathe. "I know, sweetie, I miss her, too...

"...I love her so much..." His heart crackled at that, the outer shell peeling away to reveal the ugly, broken inside. The home to his pain was his heart. "It's not fair...," he agreed, rubbing small circles into Stefani's back, "but...that's all life is really..." He was talking more to himself than Stefani, keeping his voice low, but Stefani heard.

Stefani understood.

She sniffled lightly, still holding onto her dad, the front of his shirt being home to his daughter's dried tears. "Do you think the man from your new case has anything to do with mom?" Stefani almost silently asked, keeping her head pressed against her father's chest, listening in on his heartbeat as she waited for an answer.

Seamus blew a breath out lightly, pondering his daughter's words, his mind thinking, his mind aching as he considered it. It was a possibility, but the facts were there, chiseled in stone. Jordan didn't know a thing about Seamus' personal life, it was just an act to scare him, he was all bark, no bite. But Seamus was scared, he was threatened by Jordan, no matter how harmless he truly was, the fear rose up at the fact that he wasn't completely harmless.

He was a hunter. He was a killer.

He was either dead or alive. And as either, he was dangerous.

Harmless, but dangerous.

Seamus looked down at his daughter, their eyes stained with tears, and the pain they took, alone or together. There was more alone than together. "I don't think so, sweetie." He answered, his words relieving, but worrying. "I wish he knew something, but...I don't think he does..." Which meant he had nothing to do with her case, he didn't hurt her, he didn't take her, he didn't...kill her.

She wasn't his victim.

Which meant...she was someone else's. Someone hurt her, someone took her, someone...no, they didn't, she's alive, she's alive...

He held Stefani closer.

Please, God, let her be alive...

******

Seamus leaned forward in his seat, concentrating on a paper on his desk, reading the fine print again and again, finding nothing useful, or to his advantage. All he really did find was a hidden truth, not much to call important, but it was just something to contemplate. Something to ponder. Something to...sympathize with...empathize with...

He reread the words, the so few that there was, they didn't even extend onto the next page. Just to show the unknown of the person, the unknown in the person, the unknown that was that person. He read the name at the top again, his mind still in the process of believing what was in front of him. Mathewson, Jordan A.

The definition of lonely.

Investigators had gathered up all they could on Jordan, but there was little to none to be found. Both unhelpful and somewhat sad. He grew up in Littleton, born and raised on 132 Melbourne Drive, they couldn't uncover if he had any siblings. He lived with his parents, their names were still being searched for, and their life seemed fairly normal.

They had a quiet life, not really involving or interacting with others, his parents preferred to be left alone, Jordan himself being quite of a loner, spending a lot of his time by himself. Yet, he was a smart kid, he went to one of the high schools in the area, details on which were uncertain, and graduated to be one of the tops of his class. Owned all A's, took honors classes, and had a passion for art.

Aside from school life, his home life was plentiful, perhaps a bit too much. His parents were rich, unknown from what income or job as Jordan wouldn't answer. Their house was the biggest in the neighborhood, something to brag about, indeed. His parents also attended church every Sunday, taking their son along. His parents were religious, Jordan told other detectives as he fed them the useless information, only giving Seamus when was needed since he had that ability.

The ability to understand him.

Jordan was shy growing up, very timid, alone, stoic. He only seemed to get more as the years went on. But now, he didn't own any of those attributes as he appeared threatening, taunting, and manipulating. Yet, the one thing that stayed was that wicked intelligence. He had his own to battle Seamus'.

Seamus sighed to himself as he read over the words for another time, seeing if he had missed anything, but the words kept telling the same story over and over. Once upon a time, there was a man. This man had done some bad things in his life, the terrible acts of taking lives. The man was a mystery, his past being that of him. Most of his life was unknown, but what was known was quite sad to hear.

And the unknown of his past may have been the reason he had done those bad things.

Not your everyday bedtime story.

A story with no ending.

He took a sharp breath as he lifted his head, letting reality load around him, thankful to be in it rather than the world those words spelled out. A world so barren and cold. His eyes wandered for a bit before finding those of his partner's, those eyes moving closer and closer as Eddie was walking towards him. He wore a light smile, typical of Eddie, the man was always bright and cherry, even in the darkest of nights, darkest of days.

"Sea." Eddie called to him before reaching his office, his tone of voice letting Seamus know it was good news he was to speak, possibly a turn around for how the morning was going so far. "I just got back from talking with Captain Moss." Eddie continued as he stopped at Seamus' office, those brown eyes shining like molten chocolate.

"He watched over the tapes from yesterday, and said we have enough to put to Mathewson away." Seamus listened in on the words, not believing them as he already drew the conclusions of where they would go. "He confessed to two accounts of murder, that should sentence him for years, if not life." Eddie didn't exactly say the words Seamus knew he meant by.

"What...what are you saying, Ed?" Seamus questioned, believing he already knew the answer, but he needed to hear it for himself. But by either knowing or hearing, he understood that it wouldn't be such good news after all.

Before he spoke, Eddie wore an uneasy expression, feeling bad about doing this to Seamus. He wasn't one to give things to others just to take them away, but it happened almost regularly with cases. "The case is going to be closed, it's over, practically. Mathewson will be sent to court, be found guilty, and we'll move on from there." He explained, knowing that moving on was easier said than done for Seamus.

Seamus shook his head, not out of confusion, but out of reluctance to shut the case so early on, days or weeks they usually lasted, but the few days it's been only felt like seconds to Seamus. And twenty six days felt like an eternity. "No, no, we...we can't close the case now, there's so much left untouched." Seamus fought back, staring at his partner with vexation in his eyes.

Eddie's held up a shield. "Sea, our goal was to find Jordan guilty of murder, which you did. Two accounts. The other deaths won't make a difference, he's already guilty and will receive the time he deserves." Eddie told him in a soothing tone, not wanting Seamus to get himself worked up. He knew he was just starting out again with his job, a new case was refreshing, and to have that work taken away?

"The case is done, Sea."

"The case can't be done, Ed." Seamus pushed back, not wanting to get angry with his friend, but feeling himself do so. "There are so many questions that need to be asked, answers that need to be given, a background search on Jordan that goes more in depth, possible reasons for his acts-"

"Seamus, the evidence so far-"

"Fuck the evidence so far!" Seamus yelled, he could feel a few eyes on him from around the room, he didn't bother to meet their gaze as he huffed a breath, knowing he was losing control. He turned his head away from Eddie, his eyes returning to the paper about Jordan, not reading the words, but just staring between the lines.

"He murdered seven people, and you're just going to stop at two?" Seamus whispered as Eddie knelt down to him, their eyes able to meet as Seamus turned his head. Eddie could see the defeat settle into his eyes.

He was quiet a moment before answering his friend. "All we really needed was one to convict him."

Seamus turned his head away, placing it in his hands as he sighed, feeling his long term fatigue wash over him. "These were human lives, Eddie." Seamus stated, his words causing a pang in Eddie's heart. "Don't you want to avenge them? Don't you want to find their bodies?" He asked, unable to even look at his partner in the eye.

Eddie sighed, a sound that Seamus knew meant only the worst. "Honestly, Sea...I don't think we're going to have much luck in finding the bodies." Eddie confessed, keeping his voice down low to a whisper.

He heard Seamus sniffle lightly before turning his head back to the other, Eddie taken aback by the tears in his eyes. Seamus stared directly into Eddie's eyes, the pain they held was more than ever before, Eddie could see just how much it hurt to be Seamus. "You tell me that with this case. How come you couldn't be that straightforward about Ashley?"

Eddie remained silent.

"She was just a human life." Seamus quietly retorted, feeling himself lose faith in finding her after listening to the doubt inside of his friend. He felt let down by that, he didn't have support from his friend, and as he thought about it, it felt like he never did. And to have that reality introduced to him, of his wife being pronounced dead, placed a scar on his heart that burned with each breath.

Ashley meant everything to him, she was his lover, how wife, the mother of his child, his heart, the second half to that wedding ring on his finger. To have her absent from day to day was hurting enough, to have her gone for weeks at a time was misery. To have her out of their lives completely...Seamus didn't think he could go on, not believing that he was all of those weeks before.

Just to hear how easily Eddie gave up on the Mathewson case.

How easily he gave up on Ash.

"This is case isn't done until I'm done."

With that, Seamus stood from his seat, taking multiple breaths to ease himself as he left Eddie to kneel there, having pity and pain swarm his heart until its blood stained his chest. Seamus wiped the tears from his eyes, but their bloodshot appearance wouldn't fade for sometime. Neither would the bruises aching the sensitive inside of him.

He entered the interrogation room from yesterday, lifting his head up and smiling lightly as he looked into the two way mirror. Jordan was still there seated comfortably, hands folded and staring at the table, Seamus could hear himself the tap tap tapping of his foot every second. But the room was silent.

He was still there.

Seamus pulled the case file out of his briefcase, placing Jordan's file into it before closing it, feeling himself get familiarized with the case all over again. He left the briefcase on the small table before holding the handle to the door in his hand, the cold metal chilling his body up and down. He forced his hand down as he opened the door, the scent of burnt tobacco hitting his nostrils first hand.

Oddly, it felt...like home...

His gaze fell upon Jordan's whose eyes were more tired than yesterday, the bags darker and ashier, Seamus noticed they took longer to blink as they needed that rest. But the rest of his face remained just as menacing as yesterday's. And that smile of his sent Seamus' heart racing in a nervous bind.

The pile of cigarette buts had grown overnight, the two now amounting to six, smoke still wafting off of one as it infected the surrounding air. Before he had a chance to wonder how, he found the answer to his question in the hands of the man he both wondered, yet feared.

The lighter.

Seamus' lighter. He placed his free hand to his pocket, feeling around for it, but knowing it wasn't there. Jordan's lanky fingers held it delicately as he tapped it against the table once, turning it around in his hand as he tapped it again, repeating the precise process. He held it with the tips of his fingers in a jeering way, a way that unsettled Seamus a bit more.

But the voice that followed sounded welcoming.

"Detective O'Doherty." Jordan spoke in a low tone of voice, Seamus could hear the fatigue behind it. Empathy. Sympathy. "It's nice to see you." He spoke on, pausing his hand from tapping the lighter another time. "You look rested." Jordan noted as Seamus took a seat, the cold, metal chair pressing against his aching back. The mention of sleep made the bags under Jordan's eyes appear darker.

"Home life is better than being here, wouldn't you say?" Jordan covered a chuckle with a sigh and a smile, refraining more words from passing his lips as he let those already spoken sink into Seamus' skin. "Tell me now, how is that little Stefani of yours?" Jordan pondered, his words sending vexation and irritation into Seamus' bloodstream. "I understand she's a miniature Einstein."

Seamus found himself back at square one with Jordan, his sneering question being threatening to Seamus' family, whatever was left of it. "That and she are none of your concern." Seamus defended, the relationship between himself and the other being bipolar and tense, only once in a while would they stay on a leveled ground.

Jordan's smile grew small to a fine line before a smirk took its place, not one so prominent, but Seamus' tired eyes caught it in the tide. "Then why is she all of a sudden yours?" He pushed back, Seamus wanting to strike back, but was paralyzed due to the fear, fear towards Jordan's web of manipulation, fear that he'd say something he'd regret, fear that what he'd say would be used against him for what he had done.

Confiding in a criminal.

"You've neglected her for the longest of time, why should she matter so much now?" Jordan teased, playing his role perfectly as the antagonist.

Seamus curled his hands into fists, raising them onto the table with knuckles of pale white. "Stop it." He demanded, the two words sounding solid and strong, but on the inside, Seamus was suffering and weak. As frail as his shattered bones. "You think you know all there is about me when you really know shit." Jordan's eyes waited for Seamus to continue.

"Stop holding everything against me." Seamus pleaded, feeling his face grow hot, but heart grow cold. Colder. "Aren't I human like you?" He questioned, trying to attack Jordan on a level he stood, wanting to hit home, but he knew, it's hit it for himself, too. Was he Seamus O'Doherty or Jordan Mathewson...?

Jordan didn't answer as he just stared into Seamus' eyes, seeming to be searching for something, or perhaps saying something without words. "You're a monster like me, too." Jordan added, pausing as he let his clustered mind gather itself. "Who are you? How did you get the way you are? Why?" He listed a few questions, ones Seamus knew Jordan asked himself.

And ones he pondered about himself.

"Questions you can't answer, answers you can't explain, the truth you can't lie about, but lie you do." His gaze fell to the tabletop, his expression solemn, he wasn't talking just about Seamus anymore, he had included himself into the conversation. He and Seamus were of no difference. "It hurts to be a monster." He paused briefly. "And it hurts to be human, too."

Jordan sat himself up in his seat, straightening out his spine, hands refolding, legs crossed as he looked at Seamus right in the eye. "What do you want to talk about today, detective?" He threw up a facade of false eagerness to show his condescending point. "Who do you want to speak of? Whose final moments do you want to bring to life one last time?

"Dexter Manning? Daniel Gidlow? Perhaps we could talk about-"

"I'd rather prefer to talk about you."

The room grew eerily quiet, Jordan taken aback by the proposition Seamus suggested. The two just gazed into their eyes as fragile as glass, glass that wore a thousand and one cracks on and under the surface. It left the other wondering what those eyes saw, what caused them to be that way after everything they knew prior. How those eyes felt. What could repair the damage.

What caused the damage.

Jordan blinked slowly, it taking a full four seconds for his eyes to reopen, the cracks in his eyes covered by a light layer of water before it seeped through, making the breaks more noticeable. Then they blended back in as if...they had found home in those irises of blue. Seamus knew his had.

Twenty six days.

"Me?" Jordan asked, the single syllable echoing around the room before meeting Seamus' ears. "You'd prefer to talk about...me." Jordan repeated, his eyes dipping down to stare endlessly at the badge of Seamus, his eyes reading and rereading the name and number. The meaning. Of just being a number in the system. "Detective, talking about me is only going to prolong the answers you want."

He blinked slowly, raising his eyes back to Seamus'.

"Here, you gain insight on me, meanwhile those bodies are still missing." The seven lives he took...the seven bodies...Seamus was glad that number couldn't increase...the bodies wouldn't pile up...except the blood trail was getting thicker as the case rolled on... "Lulling me into a false sense of security is not going to advance you in this case."

Seamus simply kept a straight face, keeping his words and thoughts on the inside, hopefully his eyes wouldn't give them away. He took mental notes about Jordan during his explanation, one of the tricks learned during his evaluation of becoming a cop. Jordan was reluctant to talk about himself, it was an act that could be picked up fast. He was fine when it came to the acts he committed, but when narrowing down on he himself, the refusal to speak was a constant.

Seamus kept quiet for a moment before continuing on to what he wanted to know. "How would you describe your childhood?" He wondered, sounding more like a therapist than a detective. Being someone who he avoided, he figured it to he, being someone he didn't quite fear, but dreaded.

Eddie had suggested to Seamus to talk to a therapist after his sudden downfall due to Ashley. He was concerned for his friend, and as much as he hated to admit, frightened for him. He wouldn't talk about what happened, but everyone could see what it was doing to him, his daughter included. She got to see more than the rest.

Eddie believed that if Seamus couldn't talk to him, he should talk to somebody. A therapist, a professional to get him help if he needed. It wasn't healthy to keep such a tragic thing inside, Seamus should've had the freedom to let it out in confidence. But...he ignored Eddie. He never saw a therapist. He never opened up, he never talked about what happened. He held it inside as the pain worsened.

And now he played the role of someone he wasn't.

Jordan didn't answer, he only slid a bit down in his seat, his lungs compressing and decompressing with every breath. The withholding of his answer only made Seamus' observation prove true. "How was your childhood?" He asked again, anticipating an answer at some point. "Was it good? Bad? Moderate?" He listed a few examples, just wanting to get a word out of Jordan, just a single word.

He only got an action from the other as he opened that cigarette box and placed another to his dry lips.

"You must have had some friends growing up." Seamus pointed out, keeping a careful eye on the flame as Jordan placed it nearer until upon the cigarette. As Seamus' words hit the surface, they made Jordan freeze, he slightly moved, keeping his cigarette at bay with his hand. "Who are they?" He questioned lightly.

"Were." Jordan immediately corrected, that word bouncing off of his tongue in a second flat. Seamus cocked his head to the side, silently questioning Jordan's word choice. Their gaze locked another time as Jordan placed the stuck to his chapped lips, they appeared more red than yesterday as he kept ripping at them with his teeth.

He blew out a cloud of smoke to the left, tapping the cigarette to free it of dark ashes. "We're not friends anymore." He explained, swallowing quietly, his Adam's Apple bobbing. He was quick to place the cigarette back to his mouth, taking another long breath before letting it seep out from behind his lips.

Seamus raised his eyebrows out of righteousness towards himself. "So you admit that there was someone." He picked up as Jordan simply remained quiet. "Tell me about them."

Jordan licked his lips, tasting the tobacco on them, it was all Seamus could smell. "We were fine at first. We were young, innocent, oblivious." He began, his voice low as Seamus wasn't sure if the camera could pick it up. "We didn't pick out each other's flaws, not then." He sucked in a breath from the cigarette, letting the tar to cake his lungs, letting the death of him draw closer and closer like the paper of the cigarette.

He tapped the stick to free it off ashes. "They teased one another at first, they especially teased me." Seamus took note of the change from 'we' to 'they'. "But that teasing turned into taunting, that taunting turned into fighting." He bit his lip, not taking his teeth over it, but clamping it down fiercely.

"I didn't know who they were anymore...they became...different..." His eyes wandered to the camera before dropping back down. "And we just...," He waved his hand around as he thought, the smoke from the cigarette creating designs in the air, "fell apart..."

Seamus bent his head down, keeping his gaze locked on the cigarette grave yard before finding the courage to speak again. "What sort of flaws?" Seamus questioned as he drifted his head back up to Jordan's. "What flaws were there about you?" He rephrased, awaiting an answer as the tension grew high.

Jordan hastily locked eyes with the detective, them being broken-down, blue, and bloodshot. The smoke rising from the cigarette made them sting. As Seamus stared, he wasn't sure at what anymore. He was either staring at the eyes of Jordan Mathewson, or he was just staring back at his own reflection. As denied it as much as he accepted it, he and Jordan were one of the same, different pasts, but the same pain. Their eyes looked almost identical, the cracks all in the same places.

Seamus couldn't imagine how many were on his own heart.

On Jordan's heart.

"I look into my bathroom mirror every morning and I see them for myself." Jordan explained, his tone harsh and jarring, the pungent scent of his tobacco breath making him more. "I stare into my own eyes and I count them." He leaned forward in his chair, his head coming closer to Seamus. "What flaws?" He rhetorically asked, the scent of him being a cigarette itself.

"Why don't you take a look for yourself?"

Seamus stared deeply into Jordan's eyes, but only needed to glaze over the surface to know the flaws. His intellectual level and intelligence. One of the things that most were teased about, they were considered freaks, nerds, embarrassments. For being smart. His odd behavior. It was one thing that stuck out to Seamus immediately, the repetitiveness, the vocabulary, the habits, the tics, the eyes.

There was something about his eyes...

His personality. It seemed as if there were more than one, or perhaps one that was very broad. Quiet. Stoic. Manipulative. Daring. Apathetic. Reluctant. Wise. Human. Monster. Aspects, characters, and traits Jordan wavered over, but none were to stay. He was almost as bipolar as the relationship. His brick walls. Brick not cement. Cement was hard to take down, placed down to keep something steady.

Jordan Mathewson was not steady.

His walls were brick, sturdy enough, but able to be taken down. Not all at once a tumbling, but bit by bit, brick by brick, chipping nails, skinning fingertips, and scarring hands as it went. Each time a brick was removed, the inside to Jordan was revealed, small snip its of who the man really was. But it was a process painfully slow, Seamus could feel the bricks pile up onto himself, weighing him down and tiring him out.

Seamus O'Doherty wasn't steady either.

He was drowning.

Jordan backed up a bit, taking his seat again, the low creaking of the metal was all that was heard. "I know you're counting." Jordan whispered, those words making Seamus' eyes fall away, he had only gotten up to four before the fear in him blinded him. "They said there was something wrong with me, I had a mental or physical issue that they found funny."

Seamus kept quiet more out of respect than fear, he could see that pain press against those eyes of azure blue. Then another crack form right across the left. "Look, he has autism...," He mocked them, "...he might have a tumor...he's the living symptoms of Asperger's..." He shook his head subtly, not bothering to take that last puff as he mashed the cigarette into the table, creating another burn to the bunch.

"They may have lost in life, but in the end, they truly won." He muttered to himself, his smile being at a loss as he stared at his watch.

Seamus swallowed and cleared his throat before asking anything more. "Did you?" He simply wondered, a question that made Jordan look up leisurely with an unknown feeling in his eyes.

Seamus hated the unknown.

"What?" Jordan asked, his tone unrecognizable, Seamus having to play his next moves like neurosurgery.

He swallowed again. Habits. "Autism, a tumor, Asperger's." Seamus repeated the list. "Did you have any of them?" It was a question that needed to be asked, and if the answer was what it was, the pieces of the puzzle would begin to fit together.

Jordan just stared at Seamus with amusement. "It's a possibility, detective." He spoke with a cruel timbre. "All I know is that there's something wrong with me." He cocked his head far to the right. "Would you like to take your pick at what?"

Seamus only looked away, stealing glances of the ashes coating the floor, making the shiny blue turn into an ember gray. Sort of a resemblance to himself, he used to be someone bold, clean, strong. But, a days went by, that ash piled up, that pain piled up, causing the outside to look ugly, dark, dusty, and hurt. It wasn't his shell that appeared like that, it was he himself.

And every day, he felt it bleed into the inside, killing the inner beauty of him, too.

"Everyone had something wrong with them." Seamus commented, his voice lower than Jordan's. "And sometimes...it's better not knowing what." To leave that part as an enigma, bringing it to the outside would only crush your reality. "I know." He added, studying Jordan a moment, on more of a personal level.

There, he felt more connected with Jordan than ever.

More connected with anyone than ever.

Jordan could feel it too as his shoulders slumped, feeling...relaxed around Seamus. "What did you find wrong with the others?" Seamus wondered, referring to the people in Jordan's mysterious past. And for once, Jordan obediently answered.

"Everything down to the letters in their names." He replied, his shoulders tensing again by the mention of them, perhaps not them, but of him. He hated talking about him, his past, his life. Even to someone who would understand. "The a's, the r's, the t's...sin after sin after sin..." His voice trailed off as Seamus followed it, picking up the trail of words and keeping each in mind.

Sin.

Such a peculiar word to choose.

"There was...Anthony Cross...," he began, Seamus writing down the name quickly, lucky to at least have someone of Jordan's past. "...he was a slacker...unachiever, chose not to advance in his apathetic life." Jordan described, his lips, his mouth, his tongue craving another cigarette to taste, but his mind weaning him away from them. For now.

"Didn't really care much about anything except to make me hate myself more."

Seamus swore on his grave that he saw Jordan's eyes grow glossy for just a second.

"Did...did he realize how he was making you feel?" He wondered, not asking for the case, but out of the curiosity and partial concern of his...heart...he was living...?

Jordan shook his head, unable to meet the detective's eyes anymore. "I didn't tell anyone, no one cared." He kept his voice down to just a few decibels, a few words Seamus had to read his lips to catch. "No one wanted to listen." Seamus felt more than heard himself sigh, his breath being lost as his sympathy for Jordan grew.

Confiding in a killer.

Sympathizing for a killer.

"Not even your parents?" Seamus asked.

Jordan didn't answer. He didn't look up. He didn't even appear to breath.

Seamus dipped his head as he took a deep breath in, realizing that his question wouldn't be met with an answer. "Who else was there?" He continued on with his questioning, it feeling more of a conversation with a victim than an interrogation with a criminal.

Jordan lifted his head, pleased of having the weight lifted off of his shoulders. "Aron Long." He stated, his voice a bit louder, feeling that comfort come back. Seamus placed his hand and wrist to the table, having been stopped before he could write. "A-r-o-n." Jordan told him without taking his eyes off of the other. Seamus glanced at the man with a look of uneasiness before writing down the letters given.

"He wasn't much of a friend as he was a user. Take, take, take, never gave, never thanked." Jordan wore a scowl when speaking of him. "He was manipulative, he'd be there for you until he got what he wanted. Then, it'd be back to the criticism." He kept quiet for a moment, liking his lips as he craved what was in that tiny box at his fingertips. "I was their form of entertainment."

Seamus felt his heart pang with rapport, it causing a tremble to flow throughout his entire body. "What did he ask for typically?" Came the next question, Seamus feeling himself fall back into the role of a detective with each one.

"Money." Jordan answered at once, almost expecting his follow up question to be that. "It was usually for cigarettes." He went on sparing Seamus of asking another question. "I always despised the fact that he smoked." He eyes found the red and white box in an instant. "And now I despise me."

He smiled a sarcastic smile.

"He would always ask me, he knew I had the money." His smile faded to a hurt grimace. "Most times he'd just save it for himself." His eyes stared off into the distance, his mind replaying the past to them, watching it happen again. "It didn't matter whether I did or didn't give it to him, I'd still be mocked." He sighed as he focused back onto Seamus. "I'd just prefer one less pain in my life."

Seamus nodded his head as he listened, ensuring that he understood. Which...he did. All too well, all too familiar, feeling as if he were talking to someone he knew for years. Meanwhile, the person he knew for years was being pushed further and further away as the days progressed. "Anyone else?" He wondered.

Jordan nodded a single nod, short and quick, but responsive enough. "Steven Johnson, he was the oldest, but least mature." His eyes were found wandering by that box again. "At least he had reason to taunt me. To hate me." He bit the inside of his mouth until the vague taste of blood covered his palate. He grimaced at the flavor of his own blood, but the others...

"He was another to want, he wanted everything I had, he wanted everything he didn't have." Seamus stared down at the name he wrote with blue ink, finding not the name to be familiar, but his trait. His...sin... "Money," Jordan listed a few, "a nice house, good grades, at his point, he'd beg for decent." Seamus' eyebrows tensed, giving a look for Jordan to elaborate further on Steven's character.

"Steven was poor." That was all that really needed to be said, but Jordan gave more than needed. "He only had his mother, never knew his father and he was sure his mother didn't either." Seamus knew the type, druggies, junkies getting pregnant on a one night stand, unable to care for a child, but had no choice in keeping it. He had dealt with cases like that, different, but the same. Parent getting shot or killed during drug deal, child running away, at times it was the child who was...

Seamus inhaled sharply, returning to the words given by a placid voice.

"She was an alcoholic," Jordan continued on Mrs. Johnson, "spending her minimum wage on alcohol to keep her okay." He shook his head, silently 'tsk'ing. "We were there for him to forget about it all, but I helped him remember. I hadn't meant to, it just seemed that by me being there, he remembered.

"He put me down the hardest." He nodded his head, remembering. "And I just...smiled, and took it." He flashed a fake smile for a second before it slowly faded. "He wanted to be me...," He sighed, trying comprehend it all. "He shouldn't have wanted that..."

Seamus was about to open his mouth to speak, his mouth already agape before Jordan's piercing blue eyes stopped him with just a single stare.

"Would you want to be me, detective?"

His question was met with silence.

An answer meaning no.

Jordan raked his teeth over his bottom lip, taking a piece of it with them. "There was...Max Gonzales...," that hatred in the eyes reappeared, it feeling as if Seamus were held at gunpoint, afraid to move every time it resurfaced. "He was full of himself, everything had to be about him." Jordan described as Seamus scribbled down G-o-n... "If the spotlight wasn't his, he'd fight for it. Kill for it." He drew in a quick breath by that, stopping almost immediately, and moving on before Seamus even had a chance to ask.

"Nick Campbell." Jordan stated as Seamus wrote the name down, twelve letters in length. "He was indulgent as far as the eye could see. And beneath the skin." Seamus nearly cringed at his words. "He was big, over ate whenever he got the chance, he owned a bit of greed himself." His eyes suddenly grew lighter, the dark storm clouds passing by his eyes. "In fact, they all did.

"And I found myself sitting at the table of the Mad Hatter in time for tea."

Seamus pieced it all together in his mind, still believing his thought prior on his definition of lonely. It still was Jordan Mathewson. At least Seamus received a reason for something, some pieces clicking. The reason for Jordan to be an antisocial pessimist was due to the ones he used to call 'friends'. They hurt him, damaged him, taunting him, and let his insecurities become revealed just to be bruised.

He was in pain most of his days, perhaps that's when the cracks started forming. But when did they decide to show?

"Tell me about your parents."

Jordan have a look of resistance, eyebrows dipping towards his eyes to show the rage, his lips sealed, but scowling in disgust. "You expect me to tell you?" Insult was heard coating his voice. "I share to you one of the deepest depths of my life, and you treat it as a story alike all others." The blue in his eyes was darkening again, the cuts and cracks hiding within.

"You have nothing to say after what I told you, not even the quietest 'thank you'." His finger lightly tapped the glass on his watch, another habit, perhaps, but Seamus found it as a threatening, symbolic act. Tick...tick...tick...seconds sliding right through your fingers... "I'm just like all the rest to you, aren't I?" Jordan spoke up, sitting up in his uncomfortable seat.

"I'm just another criminal to pass by this place until you don't remember the case, the victims, the faces, my face. Me." He paused, giving Seamus a good, long look. "I'm not like the others, detective." He shook his head. "Because you'll remember me."

Seamus hung his head as Jordan cut his own voice off, it still playing in Seamus' ears, more in his mind than his ears. His mind was sent racing again, trying to connect more dots. "You will applaud...", Seamus remembered Jordan's words, trying to search for the meaning of them. "You'll remember me..." "...my final act..."

What trick was up his sleeve?

"Their names were Adam and Ellen." Jordan admitted, leaning back in his seat, trying not to jump when the cold metal met his back.

Seamus wrote their names down at once.

"Did they-?"

"Did they know how much I hated myself?" Jordan interrupted with the question Seamus was to ask. "No." He answered, his face in pain as he confessed it all. "Did I tell them? No. Would I ever tell them? No." He rebounded, question after question followed by answer after answer slipping from his lips, not a breath to take in between. "Would they care? No. Why didn't they care? I wasn't perfect to them, so I didn't matter.

"Did I try to be perfect? Yes. Was I? No. Did it make them change hoe they saw me? No, in fact, they only looked down on me more." Jordan continued, stealing the words right off the tip of Seamus' tongue. "It only hurt me more." He took a small breath after that, it looking as if it wasn't even needed. Seamus was left just to stare at Jordan, sympathy surrounding him like an aura.

It was blue just like his eyes.

"Their names were Adam and Ellen." He repeated, sighing to himself. "And I was their son...Jordan...who they hated." He spoke his own name in a way so disgusting, almost as if he couldn't stand it. "And someone wanted to be me..." He shook his head, vaguely smiling a smile of falsification and inner pain.

Seamus didn't want to bring himself to ask another question, but being a detective meant your emotions were not to get involved. He tried hard to fight it, and hard to give it into it. "Did you have any siblings?" He wondered, his tone of voice frail, being understanding towards the other.

Seamus felt his heart nearly give out yet again at a sight that was the hardest to see. Jordan closed his eyes briefly, trying to cover the tears forming in his eyes. He aimed his head away, opening his eyes as a tear fell from the left, he was quick to wipe it away. "I wish." He answered, his voice frail and wavering. "That would've made the difference." He wiped away more tears as he kept his mouth closed, keeping in his sobs and his prove of being human.

The pain being human brought.

Seamus waited until Jordan was stable again, keeping his head down out of politeness, letting Jordan have what could be loosely called privacy. As the sniffles stopped, he slowly lifted his head to see Jordan's aimed down, not looking at his watch, but down at the ashes on the floor, perhaps finding meaning within them, too. He sniffled again as his eyes remained off of the detective's, but could feel his on him.

All eyes on him as he sank.

"I'm sorry." Was all Seamus could say, it being sincere and honest.

Jordan didn't even bother to look at him in the eyes. "How am I supposed to believe that when you don't even know what you're sorry about?" He asked.

The room grew silent.

Seamus took a breath, deciding to use a tactic he attempted on himself, but only failed due to the amount of stress he had boiling over. "When you were younger," Seamus began, Jordan lifting his head to reveal a face so innocent, "what did you want to be?" He asked, trying to ease Jordan's mind off of the pain.

Jordan kept everything of him hushed for a moment, from his heartbeat to his steady breaths. His eyes remained on Seamus for a minute, looking relieved about the question. "I always fantasized myself being a scientist." Jordan confessed, Seamus smiling lightly at his answer. "Wasn't sure of what kind, a physicist, an astronomer, a biologist." He named a few, shrugging his shoulders.

"All I really wanted to do was help people, make discoveries, change the way we see something, if not the world." Jordan wore a small grin, not due to the amazement of his dreams, but at the memory of who he used to be. He missed that man...

"Did you ever try to attend college?" Seamus wondered, placing his notepad away for now. He glanced at Jordan with curiosity in his eyes, but was soon met with reality as Jordan opened his mouth.

"They wouldn't pay." He replied as he shook his head, letting down Seamus' high hopes. "They knew what I wanted to be a despised it. Science was unnecessary for a family like mine, religion and faith was all that was needed." He spoke in a voice alike when speaking his name, revolted at himself and appalled by everything he wanted, wished for, or did.

He let out a scoff, mocking his parents. "'A scientist? How dare you go against our beliefs? Sometimes I wonder if you're the devil himself with everything you've done.'" He paused immediately after he spoke, hearing what he had said as he sealed his lips, pursing them as the words in there were Seamus' to grab.

Seamus took ahold of them him his soft hands. "'Everything you've done?'" Seamus questioned as he reiterated Jordan's words, leaving him befuddled and bewildered. Jordan just locked his gaze with the ground again, taking in the detail of the embers on the floor.

"If only they could see what I did." Jordan whispered, his voice dropping again. "What they did." He stopped speaking completely for a few moments, feeling the silence encase him in a tub of familiarity, but one of pain fell over Seamus. Their eyes met one another from the across the table again, feeling that level of even ground between the form.

An answer arose to how much they knew of each other.

Jordan swallowed. "I don't want to talk about me anymore."


	9. We're All Dying

+++++++++

He sighed while exiting his apartment, taking his keys out of his pocket, picking through them to find the one to the door. He closed the door lightly behind him, placing the key to the socket, turning it to the left, locking it. He jostled the doorknob in his other hand, making sure the lock was intact, finding it as it was.

He let go of the handle, turning away from door D7, placing his keys back down to his pocket, his shoes walking across the blue carpet as he made his way to the elevator. The rooms were silent, yet that was a given with the place he lived, there was barely anybody. He lived in a quiet area, an area most didn't know of, he barely did, too.

He lived in a quiet area.

He lived a quiet life.

Lived, indeed.

Daniel Gidlow wasn't the popular type, he wasn't the most social, wasn't the most interactive, he wasn't the most talked to or talked about. Most didn't know him, the name Daniel Gidlow didn't chime any bells. That's how his life had been for as long as he could remember, lonely and quiet. He lived in place that described him perfectly, without a word.

Without a sound.

"Daniel Gidlow...," Jordan stated his name, remembering who the lowlife was, "...sad to say there wasn't much to him." It sounded as if Jordan held a bit of pity for the man. But only a bit. "He had no friends, barely any family, the one who reported him missing was his building manager when he was late for rent."

Dan itched at the back of his neck as he met the elevator, usually feeling welcomed with the silence, but at that moment he felt off. The silence wasn't so comfortable this time, it didn't feel like the same quiet that overlapped his life. It felt out of place, and honestly, dangerous. He knew it probably wasn't the right thing to do, but he shrugged it off as nothing, and pressed the button for the elevator.

"He had no one?" Seamus wondered, the words sounding unbelievable and exaggerated.

Dan tapped his foot as he waited, checking the time on the clock on the wall.

8:47 p.m.

The last time he'd see a clock.

Know the time.

The date.

"Carried no friends with him out of school, was already a part of a small family, most members died due to natural causes." Jordan explained the depressing story of Dan's life. "Wasn't married or in any type of relationship, no wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend." He paused momentarily to gather his thoughts.

"His arrival to the world was just as unnoticed as his departure."

Ding.

The sound brought Dan's attention back to the elevator, it filling the silence momentarily, the sudden sound making the man nearly jump out of his skin. The silver doors opened at an even time, revealing the casual design of the elevator being basked in a warm, yellow light. 

Everything seemed fine.

He chuckled to himself, unsure of why he felt so on edge all of a sudden, there wasn't a difference from this day and all the others, he was fine. Everything seemed fine. He let in a breath as he stepped into the elevator, instructing it to arrive at the ground floor with simple push of a round button.

The doors began to close before a voice forced Dan to stop them.

"Hold the elevator!"

Dan raised his head up at the voice, placing his foot in between the metal doors to prevent them from closing. They reopened at the same given time, allowing more passengers to include themselves or remove themselves from the conveyor. Except, for the moment at hand, only one passenger entered the elevator, a face Dan had never seen before, a face he would never forget.

Until he couldn't forget no more.

A man slightly taller than himself appeared at the elevator doors, seeming slightly frazzled and in a rush. He smiled lightly and thanked Dan for keeping the elevator at bay before entering the hoist himself. He had light brown hair that was just beginning to grow wild, a light beard about to show through, and the most hypnotic blue eyes he had ever seen in his life.

He didn't know this man would be his killer.

The doors closed silently, the muffled sound of the beep being heard from inside the compartment, advising the elevator was to move soon. The man beside him let out a few light breaths, being able to catch it after his hurried actions prior. "Running late for something?" Dan questioned the other, feeling out of place with his usual shy manner.

He usually didn't bother himself with other people, he seemed to be fine working and living by himself, he didn't mind the quiet, but it did get lonesome every now and again. He wasn't sure why he took the time now to escape his comfort zone, but he found himself doing so. There was something about the man next to him he couldn't describe...

The man met eyes with Dan, nodding his as he nervously smiled. "Yeah, my...my job, I didn't realize how late it was." He swallowed lightly as he focused on the dials above, watching the floors count down. Dan took a quick glimpse himself, remembering how slow the elevator was in that building. He would have been better off taking the stairs.

"Are you new to the building?" Dan asked, somewhat proud of himself for making conversation, thinking it was towards a person new to the town, someone he could perhaps make a connection with. Yet, in all truth, he was only speaking with a killer of lives, and Dan was the next on his hit list.

They made eye contact yet again.

The elevator just passed the third floor.

"Uh, yeah." The taller man answered, nodding subtly. "I just moved in a few days ago." He elaborated, smiling shyly again before looking at the floor, it being a shiny, ocean blue alike the carpet on the floors they passed.

"A few days, huh?" Dan clarified, smiling cheerily himself, turning his head away before his mind began to ponder. A few days...how come I hadn't seen him before...or hear anything for that matter? No movers, no constant use of the elevator, not even the slightest whisper of words. It was just so...quiet... "That's funny...I just...you're on my floor, but I don't even remember hearing anything about you moving in." Dan stated aloud, tilting his head back to the man with blue eyes.

Jordan didn't stare back.

"That's because you're life is surrounded around yourself. You don't take too much of notice to others, Daniel."

Dan was taken aback, eyebrows and himself flustered with the tall man's inclusiveness. "Wait...how do you kno-"

Before he could get the words out, he felt a hand cover his mouth and nose with a rag, another pressed against his back to seemingly paralyze him. Dan tried his best to grip the other's hand away from his face, tugging and pulling, but in his weakening state, Jordan became the stronger one. He muffled out a cry, beginning to feel dizzy, still attempting to claw at Jordan's hand as he felt himself sink lower and lower to the floor.

"There we go, there we go." He heard Jordan's voice whisper lightly in his ear as the knelt to the floor along with the bigger man, keeping the rag locked on the two orifices. He watched Dan's eyes grow dull before the lids covered them, his conscious state lessening. He slowly removed the cloth from the man's face, keeping a steady eye on him to make sure the chloroform had taken full affect.

Jordan sighed relaxingly as he slid the thin rag back into his pocket, looking up at the dials atop the cartridge he was in. He smiled to himself, his plan had worked out better than he had planned.

They had just passed the second floor.

++++++++

"I don't get it."

He felt ashamed to admit those words, moments upon moments of understanding the man in front of him, and he was left clueless by the simplest of things. The two pairs of eyes met each other from across the table, Seamus' swirling with confusion, Jordan's steady as he watched the other man's incertitude spiraling like a staircase up to his decrepit mind.

It was a sight to see.

"You abducted Dan on the night of December forth." Seamus stated, looking down at the big man's file, not needing to reread the words to find what he was searching for. What he was searching for was tattooed onto his mind. "You also took James Wilson on the evening of December fourteenth." He claimed afterwards, aiming his head back to the other man.

Jordan didn't say anything to that, watching, for himself, Seamus piecing the puzzle together, himself being more so the audience than the partaker in the case. He simply just stared at Seamus, his expression blank, his body still, but his shoulders rising and falling with each of his spaced breaths. He was breathing. He was alive. He was the deadest person Seamus had ever come to know.

After himself.

Yet again, Seamus barely knew himself anymore.

"We found that hand a month after Wilson's abduction." Seamus continued, making himself a trail of breadcrumbs as he went down an unfamiliar path. What wasn't unfamiliar to him nowadays? "There were no traces of it being preserved, it was still fresh. As if...it was just cut off..." Seamus dipped his head down, trying to place it all together. "How...?"

"You tell me, detective." Seamus heard Jordan's words in his ears, as if he were his own conscience. "Connect the dots." He instructed, his words sharp at the stung from instead of rolled off his tongue.

Seamus sighed in an irritated manner, irritated towards what could be answered in a number of ways. The other being one of them, Jordan's words being woven in a way where the answers weren't always clear. Sometimes, they weren't even there. Why couldn't the facts just be there...? His tired mind was another of the ludicrously annoying frustrations he tried hard to deal with.

Why couldn't he think? Thinking wasn't a problem for him before, but with time, thinking became just a painful as breathing. Think, think, he told himself, and it wasn't the first time he forced himself to do something. To think. He had before when trying to find her, to pick up what was of her case, which was very little.

To think of where he could have taken her to. To think of why he chose Ashley out of everyone in the world. To think of how things would be different if he was there to protect her, to think of how his mistake would ruin his future, to think that the future was what time kept slipping into. To think of where she was. To think of who he was.

To think.

To breathe.

Why couldn't he think?

That hand. The hand of James Wilson. It was found barely a week back, at the time, it looked fresh, the flesh only slightly wrinkling as the oxygen began to eat at it. It was found a month after James disappeared, so why? Why did the hand look as if it were cut recently? It should've been decaying, decomposing, rotting, the skin not looking like skin, the nails darkening, the stench unbearable.

Why?

Circles. His questions...

December fourteenth. January twenty seventh.

In that time between...

"You kept them alive." Seamus realized, gazing back up at the skull with eyes of a matching blue. Those eyes that placed a pat on Seamus' back, the meaning of a congratulations. "You didn't kill them right away, you...you kept them alive." He wasn't sure which the case had just done, tunneled up towards the soon breakthrough of it all, or plunged the two of the men further into such an involvement, making the both sink.

"The word 'alive' always fascinated me." Jordan commented, tilting his head to the right while keeping his gaze on Seamus. "To think there's a definition to it, but...there really isn't one." He paused. "The minute we're brought into this world...we're dying. We never really live, no one does." He shook his head, bringing his eyes down. "Living isn't really possible.

"We're all dying. Some faster than others."

Their fixed look was restored, the meaning in his words being personal to the both of them.

"Why did you keep them before you killed them?"

Jordan braced in his metal chair, his spine as straight as an arrow, Seamus knew the word he said, he hadn't meant to, it aggravating the brunet. He licked at his chapped lips, running his teeth over the bottom one, another hanging piece bitten off. Seamus knew he wasn't to get an answer, he had predicted it wouldn't be that easy.

Jordan was a complex character, just like the human mind, or perhaps life itself, it will never truly be comprehended. There can be beliefs and there can be close interpretations, but it will still have it's mysteries.

Something of a beauty.

Something of a nightmare.

"He woke up screaming for help." Jordan continued on the story of Dan's tragic end. An end with no new beginning.

"They all did." Seamus finished.

+++++++++

"Help me! Help! Someone?!?" Dan's voice echoed off the walls, the only ears hearing them were his own for a while. He breathed heavily, feeling a panic attack surging on, he was always prone to them. He looked left and right, barely seeing anything, just darkness surrounding him, he was trapped in darkness.

He felt his lungs beginning to give way.

"Help me!" He shouted again, just hearing his voice bounce back before hearing his cries follow after, he couldn't help himself from doing so, let alone helping himself in any means. He was choking on his own sobs, face drenched in tears, he would wipe them if he could, instead his hands were bound, and his tears stained his face with residue as they rolled down.

He shouted and shouted again, trying to free himself from his situation, squinting his eyes to try and make out his surroundings, make out what was holding him back. A chair, he felt himself sitting in, he'd move side to side and hear it creak. It was weak, but not weak enough as he couldn't break it, it wouldn't give in to the weight.

His ankles and wrists were tied to the arms and legs of the chair, he thought by something leather or of that material, too light to be rope, but heavy. Perhaps a belt or a cloth of some sort, something tie-able, something rough against his skin as he felt the item rub it raw. He could feel more than see the red marks forming, yet again, he couldn't see.

"Someone? Anyone? Is there someone there? Please?" He asked in a more calm tone of voice, trying to talk strictly with the one who had done this to him, and trying to prevent an anxiety attack from happening. He sniffled, calming himself down, swallowing his tears. "Hello...? ...Is someone even there?" He asked quietly, yet the size of the room projected it back as a shout.

"...can someone help me...?"

He sat there for a few more minutes in complete darkness, wondering where he was, what he was, why he was. It left him even more helpless than in the start, with his nails clinging onto that cliff, and one by one his fingers broke. The pain. The fear. That's all he could wonder, where, what, why. As he basked in darkness.

Until came the light.

A door opened, causing Dan to not only raise his head, but squint at the light flooding the ominous room. He kept his eyes open only a slit as he aimed his head back to the door, feeling his heart pound with dread as he saw a silhouette standing in the brightness, a figure, a person he knew, he could sense, would only cause harm.

"Who the fuck are you?" Dan whispered, hearing his voice break with the worry drenching it. The other didn't reply, he just remained standing there for a moment, Dan could feel his eyes burning holes into him. "I said who are you?!?" Dan shouted that time, trying to lurch himself forward the best he could, only hearing the creaking of his chair.

No words were heard from the other being as his hand reached out to the side, Dan watching in fear before realizing what he was doing all along. The lights overhead shone down on and in the room Dan was trapped, his eyes not needing much time to adjust before everything came to view.

He was, indeed, in a chair, bound back by four, leather belts keeping him in restraints. He took a few quick glimpses around the room, finding it to be run down, dark itself, old and rotting, a few cases of mold in some of the corners. Dan was amazed that the lights even still worked. There was a table in front of him, also run down, looking as if it would collapse with the weight of a pin. His eyes traveled around before focusing on the silhouette turned person lingering in the doorway.

His eyes grew wide with realization, anger, and utmost fear.

"You..." He mumbled, feeling himself shake, deep breathing wouldn't help keep the anxiety at bay, it was already attacking him, it was there to stay. He felt his eyes water as he stared back at Jordan, knowing and not knowing the man. All he knew was he wouldn't come out of this alive, even if he tried.

"It's me." Jordan agreed, reaching behind the door for a second before returning to Dan. He slowly started to step closer, dragging a cart behind him in a taunting way, his steps slow, with each one a floorboard would creak. Jordan took his time before he reached Dan's side, stopping just to the right of him, Dan being too afraid to look up.

"Who the fuck are you?" Dan muttered, staring straight ahead at the threshold Jordan once stood in. He couldn't dare look into those eyes, those eyes he saw in that elevator God knows how long ago. Had it been a month? Two? He didn't know, he had been gone from civilization for that long.

He had been taken from his familiar surroundings to a place, a life, he didn't expect or know. He had been trapped in what could only be called a cell for far too long, that's where he woke up for the first time here. Then came the second. The third. Forth...eleventh...he stopped counting... He was barely fed, lucky enough to be. And he wasn't the only one to experience what he had.

He heard the others. Their screams, cries, pleads, yells. He tried talking to them, some would answer, some wouldn't, some would be too afraid to, some would be too frustrated. There were other cells, other victims, other people taken from their everyday lives. And as days went by, one of those voices would disappear, he wouldn't hear it again, he knew what the fate of them was.

Of him was.

He was but one to be taken, held captive, and ignored for so long before finally being remembered.

He wished he wasn't remembered.

"You don't remember me?" That eerie voice was heard in his ear. The tone made Dan tremble, positively fearing everything around him, knowing he wouldn't be saved, knowing he wouldn't live through this. He wasn't ready to die. Jordan took a step in front of the seated man, resting his lower back against the rickety table. He crosses his arms, Dan trying to avoid his direction altogether.

"The man in the elevator?" Jordan condescendingly reminded the other, giving descriptions that were nothing, but lies. "Just moved in? Late for 'work'?" He held in a small smile while staring at Dan, that glint in his blue eyes going unseen by the other.

Dan shook his head, not wanting to, but having no choice in listening to Jordan's words. Yet, he still had the freedom to rule against them. But only freedom. Not power. "That's n-not who y-you a-are." Dan began to stutter out of the fear flooding his veins instead of the needed blood for his body.

Jordan moved more to the side, trying to meet Dan's bloodshot eyes. "Then who am I, Daniel?" He wondered, his tone off slightly, Dan afraid to give an answer at all. There was nothing, but silence in the room after that, Jordan waiting for an answer from Dan whose eyes still remained on the far wall, away from Jordan completely.

He didn't dare close them.

What was really seconds felt like years to Dan, he didn't know how long he was in that room, or before that in that cell. He wasn't sure if it was day or night, a Wednesday or Saturday, if it was even December anymore. There were no windows to check, all either boarded or covered with a black curtain. There was no clock, no calendars, yet again in a place as this, why would there be?

Seconds that felt like years.

Quiet that felt like noise.

But the only noise was another of the victims screaming in the back, for help, for release. It sounded like the one who he had spoken to before, the one who called himself Spencer.

And listening to his hopeless screams made Dan realize that there was no way out.

Hearing those screams made him close his eyes.

"Y-You're a killer." Dan muttered under his breath, reopening his eyes to feel the sting of tears swamp them.

Jordan moved a bit more to the side.

"Look at me when you're talking to me!" Jordan demanded, his voice raised to the maximum as Dan flinched at the sound.

"You're a killer!" Dan repeated, shouting back as he aimed his head at Jordan, not out of bravery, but out of defense. He panted heavily, panic still rising within him along with anger seething from him. His brown eyes met those blue ones spot on, the stare piercing Dan like a bullet to the brain. "You're nothing, but a fucking killer! A weak human being who takes lives to feel superior!" Dan yelled, the tears in his eyes turning into rage.

Then all was quiet again.

Seconds.

Years.

Jordan's look fell to one of disgust, looking at Dan from across the room as a scowl formed, his lip raising slightly and twitching. A sign that showed that Dan had made a wrong move. "I made no mistake in choosing you." Jordan whispered, the echoes in the corners of the room playing it back as a sentence spoken at normal tone. "But you, Daniel, were the mistake." He shook his head, slowly standing up from resting against the table.

Dan hitched a breath as Jordan walked to the side of him, walking a bit too closely just to see that fear suffocate his eyes like a pillow over the face. His two fingers dragged themselves behind Jordan was he walked around Dan, lightly tracing up Dan's arm, to his shoulder, to the nape of his neck and back down his other arm. Almost like a knife blade preparing the cuts.

"What do you want...?" Dan desperately asked, dipping his head before turning it towards Jordan again, Jordan who was lacing his fingers around the cart handle, wheeling it slightly closer to the seated man. His blue eyes turned back to Dan's, giving a cold, quick, crisp glare. He pursed his lips before speaking.

"What do I want?" Jordan repeated the question, himself prolonging the inevitable demise of Daniel Gidlow. He pushed the cart a little further, titling his head as he pondered the question, remaining quiet for a moment. The screaming from another of the rooms had stopped. "A simple question. A complex answer." He muttered.

Dan swallowed.

"See...what I want cannot be categorized as a 'what', it's more of a mystery I'm looking for." Jordan admitted, taking his time in slowly nearing the cart towards Dan. "Something different from all the other ones out there, but from all the other ones out there, that different one is one of the same." The cart stopped. "The same that I'm looking for. What I...want."

Dan watched Jordan with frightened eyes, Jordan's eyes appeared to hold no light, no matter how bright blue they were. "That mystery dwells within you, it dwells within many, but you are the lucky one." Jordan continued, lifting one of the covered trays from the cart, placing it lightly on the table, it looking like it owned a good weight.

"I chose you because you have that different mystery. And you don't deserve it." Dan shivered. Jordan picked up the second tray. "Not saying I do, I take it, I don't keep it itself, I do with reminders, but not it. That...mystery." He placed the second silver tray down, the table giving a soft creak like everything else of the room.

"That mystery most call a life, but...I don't see it as a life as I do as a death waiting to happen." Dan's stomach turned itself into a knot, hearing that word come from that voice. That person. That...killer. Jordan lifted the third and final tray from the cart. "A death deserved." He placed down the last tray with a loud bang causing Dan to jump.

"That's what you have, Daniel, that mystery, that death deserved." Jordan shoved the cart away, returning his gaze back to Dan, his eyes meaner than before. "That...funny word. A life. I take it...but that's not what I want." Jordan's gaze fell to one of the tray lids, running his finger down the circular top, pushing it slightly.

"What I want...," Jordan's voice trailed off as he removed his finger from the lid, "...is that 'life' taken from you." Dan shuddered, wanting to cry again. "A life well wasted." He paused while Dan took an glance at the tray lid, Jordan's finger wasn't on it, but it was moving. On it's own from something underneath.

Jordan lifted a lid from one tray. Then the second. Then the last.

"A death...deserved."

Dan let out a sound of disgust and fear, turning his head away from Jordan completely. One of the trays held toads. Another snakes. The last, rats. And seeing in what type of room he was in, what position he found himself in, he knew what was to become of those creatures. And himself.

"No! No! Let me out! No!" Dan began to shout, tossing his weight from side to side to trying break the chair, his wrists and ankles red from the belts. Jordan simply let his screams be background noise as he lifted one of the small snakes from the plate, cooing at it almost as he neared Dan, the black reptile trying to slither away.

"No! No! Get away from me!" Dan begged, trying his best to back up. "Get away! No! No!" He felt his anxiety burst through the roof as he lost control of his breathing, a panic attack beginning to take affect. "No...! N..." Dan lost the ability to speak or scream, Jordan coming nearer and nearer, closer and closer.

Dan lost all control as he felt a rough hand grab him around the throat and aim his head up, Dan crying out in pain. Jordan took his thumb and forced Dan's jaw down, opening his mouth wide. And slowly, slowly, Jordan lowered the snake into Dan's mouth.

Dan tried to scream as he choked on the animal, feeling it moving around, it beginning to slide down his throat. Jordan let go of the other's head as he gagged and gagged again, feeling the snake slide by his uvula. Before he had a chance to breath, another snake was added. And another. Then a handful.

A muffled scream was heard after chokes and gags, a hissing symphony being heard from the snakes as they began to eat away at the unfortunate consumer of them. Dan closed his eyes as his sobs became muffled by the creatures in his mouth. He tried to spit them out only to spit out blood, the snakes biting Dan's cheeks and gums, burrowing into him, some sliding down his throat as he swallowed with instinct.

"Aah!" Dan screamed in pain, able to breath slightly, his throat not so clogged, yet he could feel the snakes moving around at the slid down his throat and into his system. He could still taste trace amounts of blood, the taste increasing as well as blood itself. "Ah...God!" He cried, his mouth feeling as if it were on fire.

"There is no God to help you, Daniel." Jordan's voice sounded far away before Dan heard faint footsteps trail up to the chair. Dan's eyes remained closed, too afraid to witness what was happening to him. "Only devils doing His word."

He placed a toad into the man's mouth.

Dan gagged before throwing his head to the side, throwing up all he had ingested. Blood mixed in with the content of his stomach, a majority he coughed up being stomach acid. He gagged before spitting up again, spittle and mucus running down his chin along with a drip of blood. He shook in his seat, his stomach severely upset as he couldn't describe the taste, the texture in his mouth, something metallic and...scaly...

He felt that hand grab his neck again, it being brawny and strong, it's grip hurting his already pained throat. "Too much for you, Daniel?" He rhetorically asked, his voice right in his ear. "I think you could go for a third round, don't you?" He wondered as he ripped his hand away from the man's throat.

Dan leisurely lifted his head back to an even level, tears, fatigue, and pain covering his brown, beaten eyes. His head lolled to the side as he concentrated on Jordan, Dan's fear skyrocketing for another time when Jordan came back around.

He was holding a rat in his hand.

"Open up, Daniel..."

++++++++++

Seamus held his stomach with one hand as he looked away from Jordan, holding his head with the other. He had his eyes closed, focused on other means, any other means, than the story of how Dan died. He took a deep breath, calming down the pain his stomach suffered, just the words alone rendered Seamus sick.

"He didn't live past the second rat." Seamus felt his legs shake, they always did when he felt sick as such. "I'm still unsure of how he died, all I know is that he choked. On what...either the rodent...the blood...or his own vomit..."

Seamus took another deep breath.

He wiped a layer of sweat from his forehead, swallowing a thick amount of saliva. Who was he even seated in front of...? A man so cold, a man so distant with his feelings, a man so broken that he learned how to function with pieces missing. A man. A murderer. A monster. And in all ways, a copy of himself. Seamus drew in a sharp breath, still unable to glance back up at those eyes of beryl.

"Do you need a moment, detective?" Jordan asked in sincere concern, looking at the cop with sad eyes. It felt odd, alike how Seamus felt. He felt off feeling sympathy for a killer. Here, a killer felt sympathy for a detective.

Irony is strong at heart. Strong at will.

Seamus shook his head, his trembling legs steadying themselves as of that moment. He aimed his head down to Dan's case file, looking over his pink face, brown hair, and brown eyes. The terrible fate that, that man met...

...but that reason...Daniel Gidlow sounded like...Nick Campbell...

Seamus couldn't look at that face anymore.

He, this time, blew out a breath, turning the page over to hide that face from Seamus' sight, but never from his mind. Most faces he forgot with time as the cases came and went, their deaths, if they were a victim, were forgotten or mismemorized. But Dan's face would be done to haunt him.

His death would most definitely do the same.

He blinked his eyes rather slowly as he looked at the page behind Dan's, a relief somewhat as he focused on the combination of black hair and gray eyes, yet another body to dig up from a past, a death, so...cruel.

"What can you tell me about Dexter Manning?" Seamus questioned, taking a moment before raising his head up to Jordan's. He was able to maintain the eye contact.

Yet, he was only met with laughter.

Jordan kept his chuckles quiet, but loud enough for Seamus to be taken aback by them. Jordan shook his head lightly, that smug smile of his sending a grimace to cover Seamus' face. "You shouldn't be so dependent on me, detective." Jordan told Seamus, resting his back against the silver chair.

"What I call you is your job." Jordan reminded, his smile faded to a fine line of pink lips. "Why don't you go find out for yourself?"


	10. Seven Devils

His foot pressed lightly on the break as the car slowed then stopped. He took a glance in the rear view mirror at the car behind him, making sure he was in a good enough distance from it. He turned the key in the ignition to kill the engine before pulling it out, taking a gaze at the apartment building to the right of him.

He just sat there, staring at the complex, questioning himself of why he was even there. Listening to a killer to go out of his way and break a poor woman's heart. That's what he was doing, and he knew he had to go through with it at some point. He sighed, resting his head back against the seat of his car, his heart pounding in his chest, he could hear it in his ears.

He didn't want to go in. He was out of line, what decency did he own to come here? Just to find the answer to a question that he already knew. Jordan Mathewson killed Dexter Manning. Maybe Eddie was right, knowing that was all they really needed. Maybe he made a mistake in calling the deceased man's wife, maybe he shouldn't have arranged to see her, maybe he still had time, a chance to call and cancel, to pull out of his parked spot and head back.

To where?

The office?

To home?

He didn't know. He wouldn't know until he finally opened his eyes.

Until then, he just kept staring at that apartment building with glazed eyes.

He didn't want to be the one to tell Ella the fate of her husband, but it looked like he had no choice in the matter. She was just left with a cliffhanger of her own, every morning, every day, every night, pondering, praying that her husband was okay. That he was alive. And now, when he entered that apartment on the first floor, he would play the role of a destroyer.

Of hopes.

Of dreams.

Of any and all faith.

Because his were already.

Ella was somebody he could connect with, having to live each day not knowing whether your lover is dead or alive. But...therein he held some envy. At least Ella would find out the truth. Seamus was still locked in the dark.

And having to shed the light for someone else would only make things darker in his life.

His head began to pound yet again as he contemplated it all, trying to figure out how he would tell her, how she would react, perhaps as poorly as Seamus did when hearing about Ash. And how would he recover from that? To tear Ella's heart to shreds and then force her to tell the privacy of her relationship with Dexter? Seamus' heart banged against his chest, causing himself regretful and guilty pain.

He didn't want to go in.

But in he headed.

He swallowed lightly as he unbuckled his seatbelt, drawing it back to the far side as he opened the door. He took a sharp inhale as met the brisk air of the last day of January, he would've smiled at the scent and feel if the obvious didn't lurk above him. It was January thirty first. Ashley was abducted on January forth.

Dexter was taken on December seventeenth.

He was killed.

He could only be so confident for Ash.

His shoes tapped against the gravel as he walked, closing the car door behind him and locking it promptly after. He stepped onto the sidewalk, careful not slip on the snow that had frozen over during the cold nights. Even the cold days. He shoved his keys into his pocket as he kept his hands within both, trying to keep himself warm during his stroll.

Each step he took towards the building he dreaded.

He reached out his hand to grab the silver handle of the glass door, pulling it open as he was met with a wave of warmth from the building's heater. He sighed relaxingly to himself, the warmth giving him a bit more hope for the encounter he was about to experience. About to suffer.

No need in taking the elevator, he began up the steps, but his eyes lingered on the hoist for a moment too long. He remembered the story of Dan, not so much the agonizing death, but his terrifying abduction. To be taken in the middle of the night in the most secure of places, in a place of your comfort zone, your own home. A place you've been familiar with for so long.

Only to be labeled as scary once returning from the hands of Jordan Mathewson.

But Dan Gidlow didn't return.

None of them did.

Seamus wouldn't either.

He shook slightly as he continued up the stairs, trying his best to forget. And he would forget. Until he remembered. He could feel his pulse in his veins, his wrists throbbing with every beat of his heart. He was nervous, nervous about each step he made towards that apartment door. He didn't want to do this, he couldn't do this, but do it he would.

He was a detective, he was meant to do this, this was a requirement for his job. To search for the supposed answers he needed, needed for what anymore, he didn't know, wondering if he ever did know. To go to places he was reluctant to step foot in, he was lucky this time around, most weren't so nice.

His job also forced him to break even the hardest of hearts.

The strong. The weak. The plentiful. The desperate. Men. Women. At times children. All hearts he had to crack with the honest, hurting truth. To know it himself, but then to pass it onto others... He didn't remember how he could do it before, what he did to somehow avoid the pain. The pain that was eating away at him everytime one foot landed and the other went to take a step.

He found himself on the first floor.

He bit his tongue as he walked down the left side of the hallway, looking at each silver plated number of the light blue doors. His eyes glazed over each and everyone, his heart pace quickening as each number neared the one he was searching for. And with a few more seconds, he eventually found their apartment.

Her apartment.

He knocked on the door.

He looked down at the tan floor as he waited for her arrival, giving up on easing his aching heart, there was no way to, no way he could see. His words, no matter how they were given or received, his words would just carry that dreaded sadness around with them. From his mouth to her ears, it'd just be the sound of a last breath drawn. For Ella, it'd he Dexter's.

For Seamus...it'd be his own.

Ashley was more alive than him.

He lifted his head swiftly, yet slowly when the door opened, his face showing respect with a polite smile when the woman answered the door. "Mrs. Manning, hello." Seamus greeted her, dipping his head a little. "I'm Detective Seamus O'Doherty, the one who called." He introduced himself.

"Detective O'Doherty, hi, it...it's nice to meet you." She stuck out her hand as he took it gently, shaking her hand as a formal greeting. "Won't you come in?" She asked, stepping to the side as their hands let go, gesturing for the man to enter.

"Thank you." He whispered as he stepped into the home, taking a quick look around, admiring the apartment. It wasn't anything too spectacular, but it was warm, inviting, nice. All aspects his home used to own before it was torn to the ground, and all he ever felt anymore was cold. Cold as if his body was being buried in snow itself.

"Could I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee?" She wondered, Seamus hearing the door close behind him. He turned around, smiling lightly at the woman, seeing her try to hold everything together aside her growing pain.

"Coffee sounds nice. Thank you." He thanked her as she headed to the kitchen, allowing Seamus to take a seat in the living room as he waited. In a few minutes, she entered the room herself, placing a mug down in front of the detective on the glass coffee table.

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" She wondered, taking a seat next to the man on the white couch, taking a small sip from her steaming, green mug. Seamus held his own mug in his hand, his hands no as shaky as before, his heart, too, calming down, that loud thump-thump fell to an unbearable droning in his chest. A beeping of a heart monitor, except the flat line was his heartbeat.

"If you don't mind, I just have a few questions about your husband that I need to ask." Seamus replied, raising his mug to his lips and taking a quick sip. He was taken aback somewhat. It tasted exactly like how Ash used to make it... Ella nodded her head, tucking a piece of her long, black hair behind her small ear, he could see the pain her brown eyes held. Dexter meant so much to her, and to see how much his disappearance took out of her eyes...

...out of her heart...

"How would you describe your relationship with Dexter?" Seamus questioned, taking a second sip from his cup before placing it onto the table before him. He didn't rush Ella for an answer, he looked over to her once he asked to see her holding in tears. The only way to answer was to look back and remember.

Remember when times were better.

She sniffles lightly, keeping her eyes on the steam floating from her mug. "It's...pretty good. Dexter and I met back in high school, freshman year. Been together ever since, high school sweethearts, you could call us." She snickered lightly to hold back the tears, rubbing her hands together slightly. "We got married the summer after we graduated, bought this place together, everything was really great."

She smiled.

It was so sad.

"How was everything financially?" Seamus wondered, sipping his coffee mug again, relishing the sweet taste, comparing to the bitterness he usually drank in. He was grateful for the break.

She aimed her gaze down to the carpet, shrugging her shoulders before speaking. "Stable, actually." She answered, nodding her head subtly. "Dexter works at the library a few minutes from here, most wouldn't think it does, but it pays fairly well. That and income from his parents every now and again just as an aid." She brushed her hair back again although it still remained behind her pierced ear from the last time.

Habits.

"How about yourself?" Seamus wondered, catching a gaze with her, her brown eyes remind him of Ashley's. In fact, everything of her reminded him of Ashley. Her manners, her personality, what was revealed, her hair, her eyes, her voice, even her scent was distinctly similar to Ash's. All of it made him miss his wife more.

"I used to work as a waitress during my junior and senior years, but since then I haven't taken up any jobs." She expounded, her eyes falling back down, this time to the loveseat across from them. "I'm a student at The University of Denver, going there for an art major, graphic arts in particular." She smiled lightly.

"You like to draw?" He asked, trying to ease up the tension in the room, he could feel it settle into his bones.

She nodded, grinning a bit more broadly. "I love to, it's what Dex and I met over." She explained, seeing her eyes smile as the reminisced about the good old days. "We were in the same art class, he wasn't even sure why he took art, but he said he was glad he did when he met me." She chuckled, even her laugh sounded like Ashley's...

"We were working on some project, God, it was so long ago, but Dex caught a glimpse of my work and...he said it really beautiful." She paused for a moment. "I've heard people say that all the time, but...hearing it from him..." She shook her head, grinning like a fool as a blush began to form.

"We were close since then, talking often, seeing each other after school, we hung out at each other's houses, he took me to the park, the movies, the beach..." She looked down at the wedding ring on her finger, Seamus trying hard not to look at his. Her smile faded then, the light in her eyes dying just a quickly as it appeared.

She didn't continue.

Seamus waited a moment himself before asking another question, understanding the stress and hardship Ella was undergoing. He took a third and forth sip from his cup, it was almost as if it were alcohol, numbing the pain he owned. Instead, it warmed his freezing heart.

"I'm...I'm sorry." Ella apologized for her distant and quiet behavior, shaking her head before lifting it up. "I'm sorry, I just...I've been going through a lot, and I can't sleep some nights, and..." Her voice trailed off, Seamus sympathizing with her.

"Hey, hey, it's...it's okay, Mrs. Manning." He accepted her apologies. "It's completely understandable." He assured her as she met his eyes again, unsure if it truly was, if his words were just a soothing agent. She met his eyes. She stopped once seeing his own pain within them. "It's okay." He repeated, understanding what Ella was seeing, it was something most couldn't bare to.

Seamus cleared his throat before speaking again, running his tongue over his...chapped lips... "How is your marriage with Dexter?" Seamus wondered, taking an insight on Dexter himself, seeing what he could have possibly done in order for him to become Jordan's target. To see if Ella knew, and if she didn't, to find out what Dexter was hiding from her.

"I don't mean to sound cliché, but...it's perfect." She chuckled at her own words. "We have a good life, we're fortunate, we're thankful, we're loved." Her smile returned, an expression that let Seamus know she was doing okay. He was doing okay. He didn't want to break her heart... "There weren't that many problems...we were two of the lucky ones..."

That mystery dwells within you, it dwells within many, but you are the lucky one...

"I also understand that the two of you attempted at a family." Seamus brought the topic up, keeping his tone soft and supportive, knowing he was entering thin ice and freezing waters. Ella looked up at the detective for a brief second, seeing that pain in his eyes along with the sincerity of his words.

She lowered her head again, nodding, staying silent for a moment before elaborating on the sensitive subject. Seamus let her take her time. She pushed back that piece of hair again, that piece of hair she already had minutes ago. She swallowed. "Dex told me he always wanted to a father." Ella whispered, looking down at the bracelets on her arm.

"Said it was always his dream...to be one to raise another." She smiled vaguely. "I wasn't too sure at first...but the old dog got me on board." Ella joked as she explained, the pain in her eyes being brought forward a bit more. Even an inch more made the bags beneath her eyes darken. "I was three weeks along when I found out I was pregnant..."

Just like Ash...

"...I was five months when I..." She stopped.

She couldn't say it.

Seamus hung his head. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Manning..." Seamus apologized, just trying to imagine the pain she had dealt with. Seamus had lost his wife. Ella had lost her child and on top of that her husband. Seamus cringed at the amount of hurt, to think of he lost Stefani... "I can't imagine what it's been like for you...I am just so sorry for it all." He said again, placing down his coffee mug.

Ella took a breath, keeping her tears from pouring. "It was going to be a boy..." She muttered, the details tearing Seamus in two, broken in half like her heart. "Our own little Robin..." She sniffled, rubbing at her eyes and nose, trying to steady herself out. She swallowed again, grabbing for her coffee mug as she took another sip.

To think of everything this woman has had taken away from her.

He looked around her home again.

To think of the silence...

"Is there...uh..." He heard Ella speak up, returning his focus onto her. "Is there anything else you...wanted to talk about?" She wondered, wiping away the remains of her tears as she looked back up at Seamus.

He nodded. "Yeah, uh, one more thing. It won't take too much of your time." He informed her as she nodded, taking another sip from her cup before Seamus decided to ask. It was as if Ella were a woman of glass, if he were to hurt her too much, she'd break into a thousand pieces, pieces that wouldn't go back together.

Seamus inhaled quietly. "Was there, at any time in your relationship, a point when Dexter...didn't act like himself?" He asked as she raised her eyebrows, listening while remaining confused. "Was there ever a point where you didn't know who he was anymore? Where...," he paused, "...you saw his flaws and he saw yours...?"

Jordan had a way with words.

Ella let her head fall, her hair getting into her face. She didn't push it back this time. He saw her swallow again, another habit of her's he picked up from his short time being there. Ella didn't respond after the moments Seamus gave her, she didn't answer the question for a reason. The reason being the answer Seamus needed to click things together in this case.

"I've heard what you've said to other informants when they came by, and I've heard you've said to me." Seamus summed up, Ella listening, but not looking. "Was there any time where Dexter was...unlike himself?" He asked again only to be met with silence. "I'm not claiming anything if you feel insulted, I'm just wondering. All relationships do have a problem." He reminded her, his words beginning to have an effect on the girl.

"It's okay to tell me anything, Ella." He called her by her first name, trying to reason with her. He understood her reluctance, but eventually walls come down. Either with time or force. "If there was anything, anything at all, you shouldn't be afraid to tell me." He told her, his voice being convincing and honest, he only wanted to her help to solve the case.

Ella licked her lips. "The..." She paused, Seamus was surprised he got something out of her, even a word. A sound. A breath. "The...uh...the pregnancy situation...that was an issue for us." Ella confessed, sniffling again as her voice remained in the low decibels. "In the start, I was...I was really unsure about parenthood." She paused. "I thought I wouldn't be a good mother and we should wait until I'm ready.

"It sparked a lot of fights." She continued, watching the steam from her cup slowly disappear. "He'd understand my side, but...he'd always bring up his. What he wanted, how long he waited, how he wanted a child." There was that pain in her orbs again. "In every fight, he'd always bring it back to himself..."

She shook her head before moving on. "After one of our fights, I found him crying in the kitchen. I had...I had said I wished I didn't." Her eyes brimmed with tears again. "I felt so sorry for him, he wanted to have a child so badly...and I was the reason for the prolonging." Seamus listened well, keeping quiet to not wreck her train of thought.

"I only had sex with him that night because I felt bad for him." She shook her head, revealing all. "Three weeks later, I was pregnant." She finished, rubbing at her eye.

"Was there any other time you two had problems?" Seamus wondered, readjusting his position so he was facing her more directly. She waited a minute before answering with a shake of her head, Seamus' ears perking up as he waited for her to speak, waited to hear that oh so familiar voice.

"It was...after I...lost the baby..." Ella slowly began, taking a deep breath as she said that. "He wasn't mad at me for that...he kept reassuring me that it wasn't my fault. I thanked him for that support..." She pursed her lips before going forward with her explanation.

"It was...when we discussed trying again." Her voice grew a little quieter. "He wanted to try about a week after, I refused immediately. I knew how much he wanted a kid, but I still needed time to get over our loss." Her eyes grew from sad to flustered, the memories being relived in front of them. "I had just lost a child and here he is over it in a flash..." Her voice grew with a bit of hatred and passion.

"I thought the fights before were bad...but the fights then..." She shook her head, her expression scornful. "He still focused it all on himself, the son of a bitch. A love him, but I hate him. He kept saying that it was time I should get over everything. We tried, we failed, and we need to try again." She paused for a moment. "That was the only time he included the word 'we'.

"It was always him, he was so selfish when it came to the topic. He always referred to everything as his. Our life would be his life. Us would be dumbed down to just him. Our child...his child..." Her bottom lip quivered as she stopped, Seamus shocked by her sudden avalanche of words.

Ella and Dexter did suffer pain, it was impossible for no human not to. No couple. It was more so Ella who suffered from Dex's expense, his need to have a child more than anything, not caring what or how Ella felt, as long as there was a baby in his arms. Not the best aspect of a father, that selfishness, that avarice.

He'd manipulate others to get what he wanted, drive things, push things to the test, the limit. He'd force unprotected sex onto Ella just to have the life he wanted, being ruthless when he didn't get what he wanted. Sounds like the kind of man Jordan was after.

The kind of man Jordan would kill.

Seamus took in a breath to catch Ella's attention. "I understand that what you've talked about and said are things most couldn't." He told her, looking down occasionally as he spoke. "I just want to thank you for everything you've said, it's really going to help the case out. You've been really brace through this all, and...I couldn't thank you enough, Mrs. Manning."

She nodded her head, pushing her hair back again, this time it needed to be. They both remained quiet for a moment before Ella spoke up, catching Seamus off guard in an instant. "Detective, from everything I've told you, I still am confused." She told him as Seamus waited for her to go on. "What I said...how is it going to help you find Dexter?"

His heart sank.

He didn't want to be the one to tell her.

But tell...he would...in a black and white truth...

"Uh...Mrs. Manning...," He stopped, figuring a way to put it together, "...what you told me is going to...help me figure why Jordan Mathewson targeted your husband." He told her, finding it physically, emotionally, and mentally painful to look at her in the eye.

She shook her head, still befuddled. "But..."

Seamus sighed, letting his tears become exposed before he let her know. He opened his mouth, at first nothing came out, but then what did broke his heart more than her's.

"I'm sorry, Ella."

She backed away from Seamus slightly, her lips pouting as her tears returned for another triumphant time, this time they won. She shook her head, staring at Seamus with all the nonbelief and hurt in the world. "No...no, no...no, please...no, no..." She whispered to herself, having her reality crushed. "No...no, Dexter...no..." She sobbed as she held her head in her hands, her cries she couldn't hold back any longer. "Dexter...oh God...no..."

Seamus sighed, on the verge of bawling himself as he scooted a bit closer to the crying girl, waiting a moment before placing his hand on her back to comfort her. "I'm so sorry, Ella. I-I...I truly am, I'm so sorry..." He sucked in a breath as Ella wept on. "I'm so sorry...I know what you're feeling...it's...it's awful and I'm so sorry..."

Ella looked up at that, sniffling over and over as she focused on the detective's eyes. She squinted so she could see them, and soon realized what pain he held all along. Her eyes fell down to his wedding ring, figuring that he didn't have it on to keep a promise to his wife. He left it on because he couldn't move on.

He did understand her pain.

He was one of few.

Very few.

"Oh God..." She whispered as she held onto Seamus, crying into his dark shirt, her hands clinging onto his shoulders for dear life. "Dexter...my Dexter...oh God..." She cried as he tried his best to soothe her, rubbing her back gently as he held her in return.

"Shh, shh, calm down..." He whispered to her, tears still swimming in his aching eyes. "Don't cry, it's okay, Ella." He tried to tell her, rocking het back and forth as he would Stefani. "Shh, shh..." He felt bad about lying to her.

"...it's okay..."

*******

He sat at his desk again, head hurting, back sore, tears still staining his deep blue shirt. He had papers upon papers laid out in front of him, but none he paid attention to. In fact, he didn't even stare down, just straight ahead as he held back the hurt in his head, the strain in his eyes, the name on the tip of his tongue.

Ashley.

He kept staring at that photo on his desk.

Remembering then.

Remembering now.

Remembering what went down only moments ago.

His meeting with Ella Manning.

The hell that woman bad been through, the torture she experienced, what she still is, what more she will. He felt bad for leaving her, but the time their lives crosses had run out, he was only there for a second before he was gone in the wind, the wind that blew through his bones.

And seeing Ella's pain only reminded him of his own. And she herself reminded Seamus of the beautiful woman he called his wife. Calls...calls his wife... Ella only made Seamus see not only a second side to the case, this time from a victim, but made him see a deeper insight to his own tragedy of a life. He thanked her for it...he hated her for it...

Seeing Ella made Seamus feel as if he were seeing Ashley after all this time, the time of twenty six days. Everything of the woman reminded him of his wife, and it hurt to see the resemblance. It hurt to see it within his daughter, but within a practical stranger...to Seamus, it felt of no coincidence. He was meant to meet Ella Manning...

...just to be reminded of Ashley O'Doherty...

He missed her even more, unsure how much longer he could live his life like this, if this was even living. Before things went bad, Dexter and Ella had a beautiful relationship, a relationship to which Seamus envied with all his heart. He didn't need to...but it was just human nature to. The things they had, they shared, they did...the things himself and Ashley couldn't...

He missed holding her hand. He missed waking up next to her. He missed sleeping beside her warm body. He missed her send off kisses before going to work, the short, but long phone calls on his break, on her break, the long, meaningful kisses when he arrived home. He missed snuggling up next to her, he missed having her head rest against his shoulder or when he did the same on her's.

He missed the conversations they had, the jokes they shared, the laughs, the snickers, the smiles, sometimes midnights snacks of Stefani's pudding cups or ice cream. He missed the moments of just staring into each other's eyes. He missed her eyes. Her face. Her. He missed hugging her. He missed holding her. He missed kissing her. He missed the good times, the bad, the worried, the peaceful, the loving, the lustful.

He missed the sex...

He took a sharp inhale through his nose.

He looked back down at his papers, especially the one of Dexter Manning.

Selfish. Self centered. All about him. Things Ella said about her husband, things that made Dexter a prime quarry for the evil eyes of Jordan Mathewson. The things he forced on Ella, the things he said, did, didn't apologize for. He felt more sorry for her than himself.

Maybe what Jordan was doing was good...

He sighed in frustration, opening up that tan folder again and picked up the notepad from the other night. He picked up a pen from the man scattered on his cluttered desk, it looking like it would on a regular basis of being a detective. He'd rather see it the way it was now then how it was before, empty, clean, nothing but a sleeping computer, and a picture he couldn't keep his eyes off of.

He sighed, trying not to think about it.

He blinked his eyes slowly, reopening them to see the notes he wrote the other night, the pen tapping against the paper as he thought on how to continue them. He read what he had written before.

What Stefani had probably read, too.

James Wilson, dismembered alive, wrath

Aleksandr Marchant, frozen, envy

He continued on in a pen of the same color.

Daniel Gidlow, force fed rats, snakes, toads, gluttony

Dexter Manning, ...

He reread what he wrote, his mind forming a revelation in the light of day. He stood up from his chair at once, exiting his office, leaving the folder and papers behind, having only, but that small pad of paper in his shaking hand. He filed past the others in his work place, Eddie included, he could feel his friend's brown eyes studying him.

They still felt so sad.

He ignored the many stares as he made his way to the interrogation room, not giving himself time for a breath before opening the second door. Jordan still sat at the table, Seamus relieved to see he still had time to speak with the killer, Eddie hadn't gone out of his way to ruin Seamus' work.

Seamus stood in the doorway of the room, not entering, not exiting, just standing there, staring. Jordan's blue eyes locked with his own, he appeared to be motionless again, waiting for Seamus to speak.

Say something.

Say anything.

"Your victims were the seven deadly sins." The detective finally spoke up, staring at Jordan in curiosity, amazement, and fear.

Jordan just kept staring with that blank, soulless stare of his to give anyone nightmares for days.

Unless of course, life itself was a nightmare.

Jordan only added onto it.

"They were seven devils walking around on Earth." Jordan responded, the vague scent of cigarettes still haunted the room. He waited a moment longer before reciprocating once more. "And Dexter Manning was greed."

Seamus could only stare.

Jordan swallowed, looking down to the floor.

"So I boiled him alive."


	11. I Am Him

Seamus could only stare.

Stare into the blue orbs in front of him, glistening with innocence, but dwelling with fault within them. Stare into the broken trails of Jordan's mind, what went wrong, what twists and turns led to the darkness of his mind. The darkness that was his mind. Stare more into the cracks his eyes suffered from, the pain they caused just to blink, salt being poured into the wounds. The scars.

Seamus could only stare.

There were no words that could the describe the man sitting in front of him, a man being included. There was nothing that could be Jordan Mathewson, he was all, yet none. He wasn't human, he wasn't alien, was there even an in between? He wasn't stoic, he wasn't open, he wasn't complex, he wasn't simple. He made you feel pity, he made you feel hate, he made you feel anger, he made you feel calm.

He was and wasn't a lot of things. And he made you question the same about yourself. As if Seamus wasn't questioning enough already. Dead or alive? Dead or alive...? Who was he even asking anymore? There was no one definition to Jordan Mathewson, let alone one. He was a disarray of fear, empathy, and brilliance, always leaving Seamus nearly befuddled with every word that slipped past the man's mouth.

Words he listened to.

Words he tried not to agree with.

Words he was appalled by.

Words that he himself stole from him.

Jordan had a way with them. Yet, none could describe him.

"I told you I'm not like the others." Jordan reminded Seamus, the others being the past criminals and crooks to face the building,the room, and their sentence to life or death. The men, the women, the minors. Just to pass by, not like shooting stars, but just a breath to the lungs, not so much as a needed factor, just as a breath to be passed, and pushed away.

Seamus bit his bottom lip as he shook his head, his mind aching as it felt weak, allowing words he tucked away to be thrown across the room. "No...no, you're...you're worse." He paused, his hands still shaking from hearing of Dexter's death. "What kind of person are you? What kind of monster?" He rhetorically asked, knowing his words were hurting Jordan on the inside.

He saw another crack form in those blue eyes.

He shook his head again. "You are fucked up. Bringing Hell to earth as if life isn't painful enough." He spoke out of experience. "I've dealt with the worst of cases, the worst of killers." Jordan stiffened in his seat at that word. "Suicides, manslaughter, murders of all degrees. Rapes, abductions, acts of terrorism, acts for attention, all terrorizing in their own way. I'm surprised I can sleep."

He stayed silent for a moment. "But I can't anymore. Sleep is foreign to me." The bags beneath his eyes grew darker. "Because of you." Their eyes locked in a painful stare. "The acts you've committed, the deaths you've caused, how, and why." The deaths went through Seamus' head, how elaborate, how cruel, how inhumane. He couldn't begin to imagine the agony the victims felt.

"You're not a human, you're not a monster, you're worse." He summed up, not knowing that Jordan was, and giving up on trying. Letting go... "And I'm not you." Seamus harshly stated, trying hard himself not to believe it. "I may be soulless, but I don't kill. I'm not a killer." Jordan clenched his hands into fists as that word was said again, and again, the word he hated with his might, the word that didn't describe him in his eyes.

Seamus sealed his lips after that, keeping a firm eye on Jordan, waiting, wanting, for Jordan to say something. Jordan sighed sharply, licking his chapped lips yet again, his teeth ready to bite the bottom one again. And it did, slowly...raking...over it... He cocked his head to the side, stretching the worn down body part out, closing his eyes during and taking a breath.

He sighed as he relaxed, opening his eyes gently, but to see the table instead of Seamus' big, blue eyes. He refused to look up at such a man, and Seamus felt the same way with the being in front of him. "I...remember why I kept to myself." Jordan quietly stated, itching at the back of his head. "No one understands."

Seamus snarled, an expression that went overlooked by Jordan, his gaze still stuck to the table. "I have been listening to you-"

"But you're not understanding." Jordan was quick to respond, snapping his head back up at Seamus, that cold stare of his reaching below freezing temperatures. "Because you're choosing not to. To avoid being seen as a claimed 'sympathizer' of me." He swallowed lightly. "And why? For what?" He kept his gaze steady.

"You understand me all too well. You're the one who's afraid." Jordan brought up a point from the past, taking Seamus' words and hanging them back to him in a condescending way. "What are you afraid of, detective? Becoming me?" He asked. "That how people see me, that's how they'll see you?"

Jordan sighed while staring into Seamus' eyes, leaning back in his chair while letting out the remainder of his breath. He traced out Seamus' eyes a few times before deciding to speak again. "That's a fear I've never seen before." He whispered to himself, taking in the sight of Seamus' eyes until they were burned into his brain.

"Is that what's holding you back from comprehending me?" Jordan questioned, Seamus feeling Jordan begin to make a home for himself in his head, sinking like a knife blade into the frontal lobe. He internally winced. "The others? Stefani? Edwin? Liz?" One by one, it tore Seamus' heart strings to know that a killer knew who was close to him. His sister in law, his friend, his daughter. One by one by one.

Jordan's lips nearly curled into a smile. "Why are you letting them weigh you down?" He asked both sincerely and sinisterly, mocking Seamus, yet at the same time, asking a question Seamus feared the answer to.

"They're not weighing me down." Seamus fought back, feeling himself fall back into place of hating the man in front of him.

Jordan's expression turned curious. "Then why haven't you accepted that you're just like me, not human, not a monster, but worse?" And just like moonlight, the silence basked over the pair again, for longer than Seamus could stand. He had nothing to fight with, just taking pain after pain as it escaped Jordan's mind, and started stabbing away at Seamus'.

Jordan sniffed sharply, breaking the silence, adding onto the tension. "They're blinding you from seeing, blocking you from hearing, stopping you before you become me." For a moment, Jordan's eyes were the key to Seamus' lock, somewhat opening the other and just taking a peek inside. "I understand it's difficult to be me, but you already know that.

"You will never fully comprehend me, detective, unless you become me, until you become me." Jordan's eyes fell away, almost licking his lips as his eyes were caught by that box of cigarettes lain to the side of him. "And I don't see what's holding you back, nothing, but excuses, justifications." He fed the yearn. He opened the box of cigarettes, placing another in between his lips, he could taste the tobacco already.

He slid the lighter back to himself before Seamus had a chance to touch it, picking up the black, plastic object and allowing it to do it's job. He lit the cigarette promptly, taking in an immediate breath as the flame ignited. His face wore a blanket of relaxation the smoke met his lungs, the chemicals, carcinogens, and tar eating away at the inside of him. Gray smoke blew from his mouth and to the side, his face looking peaceful for once.

"Human. Shields." He finished his thought while placing the lighter back on the table, but keeping it near himself instead of giving it back to the detective. He placed the stick between two fingers, letting the smoke waft out into the air, polluting it and soon Seamus' lungs, too.

"Things you have, but don't." He mumbled, the tobacco on his breath keeping him under control, all he needed was just the taste. "A daughter who's learned to depend on herself," he listed, "a sister in law who's more of a parent than you. A friend who seems like a stranger himself as the days go by..." His voice trailed off, looking behind Seamus as the mirror, staring into his own eyes, but also into another pair he could sense was there.

"A wife..." Jordan began, turning back to Seamus who had pulled the plug before Jordan could. His eyes read a warning to Jordan, he was already walking on thin ice. Jordan licked at his lips lightly before sucking on that cigarette, keeping his eyes stuck on Seamus' the entire time. He blew out a breath of smoke. "Why don't you become me, detective?" He wondered. "There's nothing for you to lose."

"What is there to gain?" Seamus pushed back, yet feeling himself teetering over the edge. "The satisfaction of knowing there's a life that will never be lived again?"

Jordan looked down. "Only deaths that keep on dying." With his words was a silent agreement to Seamus' claim, one that shot the trigger to the gun. Only to have the bullet pierce both of their hearts.

Seamus shook his head again, still in the state of denial. He knew he had the potential to become Jordan, he understood every mean and symbol to leave the man's mouth. And it was the truth that he was afraid, for once in his life, afraid for himself. Afraid of the outwards appearance he would give others, rubbing them up the wrong way as if he didn't already with the plain expression stapled onto his face.

They already knew he was falling, some saying he already fell. And instead of seeing him get better, the complete opposite was what they'd be met with. Turning from a healthy, young man to a man sick and suffering from the facts and actions of life. To a man who no longer was a man as his best friend was a killer being sentenced behind bars. He didn't want that to happen, so he pushed the thoughts away.

And he loathed Jordan for pulling them back.

"You've dismembered a human being. You've frozen one. You've choked one." Seamus named death after death, their departures were slowly becoming their names. "You boiled a man alive." He emphasized, pausing to let his words sink into Jordan's thick skin. "For what? Why? Because he was greed?" He taunted, the snide sound of his voice testing Jordan.

Jordan took in a deep breath, lungs and chest sticking out before letting out little by little. "You know, I contemplated you for a while as a victim." He confessed, watching the smoke rise from the stick in his hand. "Which you could be. Greed...envy...wrath..." He subtly shook his head as his eyes resurfaced to meet Seamus'. "I'm only sitting before you today because I didn't choose you."

Seamus still felt threatened alongside relieved.

"You weren't any." Jordan quickly stated, placing the cigarette back to his lips, taking in a breath of smoke, a breath of oxygen for him, a breath of life. "But there's something of you, detective...something I need to set right." He flicked his wrist slightly, adding more ash to the mess on the floor.

Seamus sat up straighter. "By putting me through this hell?" He questioned, his voice rough and low.

Jordan looked amused at that, eyebrows raised in a pleasant type of way. "You call this hell?" He questioned, catching Seamus off guard. "Detective, you haven't seen anything yet." He declared, his tongue wetting his lips before they were dried again by the cigarette. He pulled it out after a breath in and a breath out. "Question is...will you see?"

He smiled.

He looked down at his watch.

Silence.

Seamus bit his lip. "Why did you choose the seven deadly sins?" He questioned, trying to bare the stare between himself and the killer. He was withering away right before Jordan's eyes. But Jordan didn't take the strength.

"Why did you choose to be a detective?" Jordan ping ponged back, answering a question with a question. Not so much a habit of Jordan's, but a strategy.

Seamus huffed a breath, feeling his annoyance raise a little higher, just waiting for it to fall. "What happened to asking questions that only prolonged the real answered?" Seamus mentioned, Jordan noting the other picking up on words and phrases he dropped along the way. Step by step, step after step, to and of becoming Jordan himself.

Jordan snuck another breath of that cigarette in between his lanky fingers. "I'm only using your tactic, detective." He twiddled the cigarette against his pointer and thumb, covering it in fingerprints. "You share, I share." He mashed the cigarette into the table, creating another to lay there, another black burn onto the already dull table.

Seamus felt threatened.

"Why did you choose to be a detective?" Jordan repeated, watching the fire on the stick die slowly.

Seamus kept his mouth sealed shut, knowing what Jordan was doing. Manipulating. Twisting the wires, trying to defuse a bomb while setting one of his own. He caught the trick early on, not allowing himself to fall for it. Again. He sewed his mouth shut, but the needle kept pricking his heart. He sighed at the feel, used to such a pain.

Jordan rested elbow against the table. "You and I both know, detective." Jordan admitted, the words alone make Seamus shake. "Why do you go ahead that little camera over there...?" Jordan suggested, pointing to the gray object in the corner with the blinking red light. Seamus didn't turn his head to gaze.

"Or...better yet...why don't you go tell it to the man standing behind that glass?" His voice was odd and eerie, Seamus pursing his lips to refrain from speaking. He, too, could feel Eddie's on him from another room, that sad stare of his feeling like a ghost to simply haunt. And haunt it did.

"Unless...you don't want to see..."

Seamus kept his mouth shut, in fear of anything he could say. He wasn't in control anymore, it was a game of roulette going on inside of him. An apology would be turned into a threat, a hateful remark could be turned around by the other's words, an answer could be pricked and prodded until it was an advantage in Jordan's hands. So Seamus kept his mouth shut.

Jordan kept on going, walking down a road of memory lane for Seamus. Memory lane that hurt his feet to walk on, hurt his eyes to see, broke down his brain to remember, and left his body to freeze. Memory lane. Word after word that came from Jordan's mouth. His cracked lips. His crooked smile. Word after word after word.

"You were fourteen, weren't you?" Jordan asked, already knowing the answer, already knowing Seamus would give one. He sat there, mouth shut. "Freshman in high school, only child, but not too over your head with being spoiled." It was as if Jordan had relived Seamus' life for himself.

Jordan swallowed.

"Spoiled was, in fact, the last thing you were." He continues, not making direct eye contact with Seamus as he simply glanced down at the table. "You were one of the unlucky, the unfortunate, breaking down slowly until broken didn't even describe you." Seamus only took the pain, unable to fight it as it was only the thruth.

Memory lane.

Jordan raised his eyes back up, that deeper, insidious stare of his making Seamus' timer tick faster. "What happened that day, detective?" Jordan paused after his wonder. Seamus didn't reply, as expected, leaving room for Jordan to continue, to continue putting Seamus through hell.

You call this hell...?

Jordan placed his top knuckle of his small finger against the thumb, pressing slightly until a small 'pop' was heard. "It was...November sixth, wasn't it? When you realized what you wanted to be in life." He placed his thumb against the knuckle on his ring finger, waiting a moment before pressing down, cracking the next finger. Seamus cringed at the sounds.

"Wasn't much by choice...nor force." He admitted, Seamus feeling the tension being trapped in his lungs like moisture. It felt harder to breathe, as if it wasn't hard enough. He placed the thumb against the joint on his middle finger. "You chose it out of guilt." He pressed down.

Pop.

Jordan took a sharp breath in, feeling the blood course through him, the warmth it gave off, the coldness he felt. "It was just a normal day, the sun rose at a normal time, you opened your eyes like you normally did, normally do, and began to live that morning, that day." Jordan chewed on his bottom lip for a minute. "That...normal day."

Seamus clenched his teeth, finding himself at an impasse. Either speak his mind and have regret held against him, or buy into the fear that came with the story coated on Jordan's breath. He could still smell the tobacco. "Your mother was a stay at home mom, your father was a banker." Jordan recited each word as if it were poetry. "Erin and Quinn O'Doherty, and their only son, Seamus."

It had been forever since he considered himself a son. Considered himself family of any sort. He didn't even feel like a father anymore.

"Your father went to work that morning, eight to two, his usual shift for a Wednesday." Seamus was shocked at the detail. "You didn't think too much of your father's job, it wasn't extraordinary like a firefighter, a doctor, a teacher." Jordan named, Seamus beginning to give way under all of the pressure and stress.

His shell was beginning to crack, crack like his eyes that had suffered too much.

Jordan was beginning to see it.

"Except it did become important to with time." Jordan mentioned. "A date."

"November sixth..." Seamus mumbled, remembering it for himself.

Jordan licked his lips. "It was around noon when those officers came to your door, you didn't know what happened, all you could see were the tears in your mother's eyes." Seamus swallowed, feeling some arise in his, turning his head away from Jordan as he tried to hold it in. "What happened, detective...?" Jordan asked again, prying and trying to get somewhat of an answer out of Seamus, a reaction, an emotion if not an answer.

Seamus pursed his lips.

Jordan continued.

"Your father was caught in the middle of a bank robbery, the classic of heists." Jordan shook his head as he commented. "Two armed suspects, fifteen held hostage...," he paused momentarily, "and by the end...one dead." Seamus' heart blew out a light at that, yet another section needing repair.

"Your father was shot three times, twice in the chest, one in the neck, he bled out from his injuries after he had alarmed police. That was his punishment to them, really." Seamus wiped a tear away, holding in a sob and a sniffle, he didn't realize how sensitive he was. All his life he had been surrounded by pain and agony, from family to friends. But only loss from both.

"The crooks got away with nothing, but a prison sentence, they didn't even get away with your father's life." Seamus took a breath once hearing those words, Jordan was only trying to break Seamus down. And it was working. "They took a life...but keeping one is impossible.

"Criminals killed your father." Jordan summed up. "That's why you became a cop."

Seamus took a large breathe in, lifting his head as he tried to steady himself, feeling the pain return when he was forced to accept that his father had passed. It was a pain so indescribable and it only got worse with time. From the loss of his father, to the loss of his wife, to the loss of himself.

The unavoidable loss of his mother...

"...I just wanted to help take care of the bad people in this world..." Seamus whispered,rubbing at his eyes and nose slightly.

Jordan felt a pang of sympathy. Empathy. "Because it might help with the pain."

Silence followed as an agreement from the detective.

"Did it?"

Those two words from Jordan sounded honest and heartfelt, not ones from a criminal who didn't feel understood, but from another human being only reacting to his surroundings. Seamus stared through heavy tears into the eyes of Jordan, staying silent a moment as he saw what looked like a beating heart in his eyes. Jordan was feeling concerned towards the other, his feelings coming back to life.

It hurt. It eased.

Seamus shook his head, feeling his tears begin to recede. "If only...it just made the pain worse..." It was far beyond salt in the wound. It was terminal.

Jordan dipped his eyes down, understanding that as he nodded his head, put his own puzzle together. "Living a life with death and destruction at your doorstep, of course it would only make the pain worse." He spoke more to himself than to Seamus, putting piece after piece in the proper place of his mind, Seamus' mind.

"Here you are, a detective to avenge your father when you're on the verge of becoming a man who killed him." Seamus felt pathetic at those words, falling to his knees in front of them as he slowly let them consume him, skin first to the inside second. "You're sympathizing with that man. Empathizing with him. Talking...understanding...becoming..."

"...weakening..." Seamus added, feeling what little to no courage he had crush beneath his own weight, blowing away like dust. Like cigarette ash. Like snowflakes. Like her.

Going.

Going.

Gone.

"How do you know of all of this?" Altering his question asked early of how much he knew. Too much was the answer to most. Everything was the answer to Seamus. He sat there with a question racing through his mind passing the finish line as it left his mouth, and now hung in the air as time froze, winning to losing, hanging, hung.

Jordan brought his attention and direction back to Seamus from the mirror again, his neck turning to the side, twitching slightly like a bird's. "I haven't known for so long, but in that time I did, it wasn't so hard to find out." Perhaps not that in detail, but anyone could know that Seamus was under pain. In pain. Was pain.

If it wasn't in his appearance, it was in his mood. If it wasn't in his mood, it was in his words. If it wasn't in his words, it was in his actions. And from the actions back to the appearance.

Circles.

"I. Stalked. My. Prey." Jordan emphasized each word, answering Seamus' question in a bitter and direct way.

Silence.

"I also know you visit your father's grave often." Jordan carried on, leaving Seamus in the dust, but he could still hear the stir of echoes from Jordan's rough voice. Seamus looked down, feeling Jordan's eyes follow him as well as that same pair from behind that glass. Eddie watching the two of them as a new world was being unveiled to him. The horror land of Seamus' crumbling life.

Jordan shook his head. "I'm still befuddled on which it is, they placed him in a graveyard close to you, or you couldn't leave so you stayed nearby." Seamus didn't stare into Jordan's eyes, fearing he'd find out the answer. Assuming he didn't already. He heard Jordan clear his throat. "I still have my beliefs and doubts on that." He moved along.

"You, too, see your mother frequently. More frequently than you take care of yourself." Jordan pointed out, his eyes trailing up and down what he could see of Seamus, what he could see was enough. Tired eyes, bags, creased, he blinked slower and slower. Yawns, some closer together than others. His lips always held a firm line, and if not, a frown would take it's place.

His posture was poor. His hands were shaky. His voice frail at times, yet at the others times, it wasn't strong.

Where's the strength...?

"Although you visit, it must be hard for you to see her like that." Seamus knew exactly what Jordan was speaking of, the condition of his mother was hard to hear about, let alone see ever so often. "She's a frail woman yet, hooked up to IV's, blood bags, monitors of all sorts, catheters and the like as she withers away in that hospital bed, dying of cancer, now that is a real killer, a real murderer."

Seamus broke at that.

He let a quick sob pass, catching himself before he fell any further, holding a fist to his mouth, his eyes wide shut, tear stained, and strained. He felt himself shake slightly, letting the image pass through his mind of his mother, sixty three years old, and letting the devil of blood cancer eat her alive. He let a frown consume his face as he bit his bottom lip, trying to hold the pieces in place.

Trying.

Trying wasn't enough.

And Stefani understood.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Jordan asked Seamus, not wanting an answer with words, but of the quiet, the quiet let Jordan know that Seamus comprehended his means.

It hurts to be a monster.

It hurts to be human.

Jordan sighed, sitting back in his metal chair, allowing Seamus to regain his composure before their friction would return. He watched the detective as he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand the pain washing over him again and again as he couldn't stop it, couldn't bear, could only suffer in the silence left behind by a killer.

He hated the silence.

All he could focus on were Jordan's words, the facts revealed about his mother and father, one meeting a gruesome fate, and the other already there. His life changed drastically once his father passed, his mother became unstable, years after years, five, six, seven passed and she couldn't get over the truth. She had to find a jobo support the family, and Seamus saw her less and less as the years rolled on.

The weeks.

The days.

The hours.

Minutes. Seconds.

He hadn't moved too far from his childhood home when turning eighteen, living not even ten minutes away. Just to visit, check in, make sure everything was okay. Though he lived ten minutes from his mother's house, it wasn't there where he visited anymore. He wouldn't again go there to visit, only ghosts lived there now. Of his father when he was alive, of his mother when she was a happy go lucky woman, of himself when he wasn't disappearing in plain sight.

He wouldn't go to that house to visit.

Ten minutes to that place.

Half an hour to the hospital.

That's where his mom lived now. And he knew that that would be where she would die.

He checked up on her once, twice a week. Making sure she was comfortable, she was taking her medication, they'd talk about events from the past, when times were better. The good old days. She'd share crazy hospital stories, he'd update her on what was happening at his job. She knew about Ashley. They didn't talk about Ashley.

Everytime he'd come, his mom would look a little better.

Everytime he'd come, he'd look a little worse.

He didn't know who the true one dying was.

We're all dying...

Ten minutes to the house. Thirty minutes to the hospital.

Not even five to the graveyard.

He used to go there everyday just about, walking up to the grave of his father, Quinn Ivan O'Doherty, and talking. To himself. To his father. He wasn't sure what he'd talk about, but it felt nice to just be there. To show his father who he had become, to tell about his new life, his job, his wife, his daughter, his family, how his mom was doing, how he missed him.

The laughs. The frowns. The smiles. The tears. The hellos. The goodbyes. The chit chat. The quiet.

He used to go there just about everyday...

Everyday turned to about just the weekdays. Then just the weekends. Then to just once a week. During the day, during the night. Times kept getting shorter and shorter, conversation lacked, sometimes he'd just sit there on the ground, staring at his father's tombstone before standing up and heading home. And now, it had been almost a month since he had gone, twenty seven days, ever since Ashley.

Day twenty seven.

God, it had been that long?

Seamus sniffled lightly a few times, swallowing back the numerous amounts of tears, biting back sobs, hiding the whimpers, the frowns, the pouts. He blew out a breath, knowing his eyes were still bloodshot, but he couldn't hide the pain anymore. He lifted his head up, continuing to take small breaths as he looked back up to Jordan's eyes.

Those eyes didn't look like those of a killer's. They were compassionate, sparing, sorry.

And he could still feel the second glare from the room just behind him.

They just felt so sad...

He heard Jordan take a sharp breath as he himself looked away, Jordan taking a breath perhaps to steady himself out, sitting straightly in his chair. He kept his eyes on Seamus for a while before speaking, taking in the sights of such a broken man. Comparing it to himself. Finding a steady ground between himself and the other, a momentary truce.

You share. I share.

Jordan swallowed. "I chose the seven deadly sins because of my past with them." Jordan began to explain, answering Seamus' forgotten question asked prior. "In fact, all biblical presences had their spotlight in my past, Noah, Jonah, Esther, Abraham, God himself." He paused, biting his lip. "And the seven deadly sins."

Jordan sighed, trying to get past his words, finding it harder than he thought it would be to talk. That's why he preferred the silence. "I'm the product of a religious family, you probably know that from your reading." He felt his blood run cold when speaking of his past. He didn't like talking about himself. "They dragged me to church every Sunday...I never really did see the point." He shook his head. "Religion always bothered me."

Seamus rose his tired eyes back to Jordan's, the pain growing like the veins in his eyes. His eye twitched from the stress. "Why believe in something greater than yourself? That there's a saint above to protect us." He scoffed at such an idea. "If He protects us from the bad, why does He do bad?" Seamus pondered the same question every now and again.

Jordan bit off another thin slab of skin from his lip. "Some say that the bad is the work of the devil. But...I find that stereotypical." He smiled lightly, amused with his speech. "Everyone has bad in them...even your precious, little God." He wasn't speaking to Seamus anymore, his eyes drifting to the floor, staring at something, someone in the bank of his mind.

Ellen and Adam Mathewson.

"And with time...I learned...there is no God. Only people. People with bad in them, a lot or a little." He stopped for a minute, just staring at the floor just in front of the door. "And people who are bad altogether." He whispered, himself included in that category. "It's not the devil who commits terrible acts, it's not God, it's the people on earth who create a damnation to inhabit."

The people.

His people.

Her...?

"They create life...," his eyes remained on the ground, "and they end it." He let a breath pass through his lungs. "They make dreams...they make nightmares..." His stone cold eyes fluttered their way back to Seamus'. "They made you." His face was plain. "They made me."

Seamus dipped his head, swallowing lightly, needing to hold the pieces of his shell in place, to be a detective, to be a detective... To be a monster like him... He felt his heart shudder in his chest, it sounded like that nervous pounding, but it was fear controlling it. Consuming it. Making his demise rush faster to meet him as if he already hadn't seen it in the morning mirror. That shallow face of his own.

That was death.

His heart kept shaking. "What did your parents think of your beliefs?" He wondered, hearing the frailty of his heart echo into his voice, rendering it quivering and shivering. The effects Jordan had on a person, the fear, the worry, the anxiety building up just by staring into those eyes, by catching a whiff of that tobacco, by simply sitting in the same room.

Jordan kept quiet, his eyes lowering before his mouth opened. "They were disgusted." He answered, his eyes remained off of Seamus'. "They found me as a disgrace to the family, a sin in life, a sin to die." Seamus took a step back, listening to the words Jordan said and feeling them knock him down along with the other.

His parents wanted him dead. They didn't respect him, they didn't acknowledge him. They forced him, they pressured him, they didn't help him when he tried to hold out a hand. From friends to family, Jordan was left with no one on his side. He was put down, ignored, disrespected, stolen from, teased, taunted, and mocked.

Broken until broken didn't describe him anymore.

Jordan tapped his fingers on the metal table, a dull sound resonating before he tapped the top again. "They tried to make me believe, taking ne to church, forcing me to read that bible, taking communion, confirmation, classes." He listed, his eyes slowly returning home in Seamus'. "I hated being their son. They hated being my parents."

Seamus lowered his head, feeling more sympathy than ever for Jordan, what a life he led. The agony he suffered from morning to night, day in and day out, from home, to school, back to home again. He was given no love, which explains his sociopathic behavior. He had to take care of himself, no matter how hard of times got. Which left a question lain about.

How hard were the times?

"...I had to be the good son..." Jordan mumbled, his voice growing lower and lower before it would rise again just to decline down the decibels. "Change who I was in order for them to love me." Tears reappeared in Jordan's eyes, he bit his lip to refrain them from falling. "I had to be the good son." He repeated, cocking his head to the other side. "Because if not..."

His sarcastic smile faded to a face of fear, his words stopping completely as his eyes seemed glazed, but the cracks seemed more visible. He sealed his lips, keeping the last of the words to himself, letting them slide back down his throat like ice. His gaze grew weaker before tearing away from the detective's, keeping what was about to be said to himself.

Seamus dipped his head down to meet Jordan's eyes. "'If not...'" Seamus asked, knowing his attempt to open Jordan up was only an attempt, it wouldn't do the trick. Jordan only drew his eyes down further, keeping them on his lengthy fingers.

Seamus sighed, resting his back against his chair, letting the silence bathe him before either one of them decided to speak again. "They used to say I was the devil," Jordan spoke up, but mumbled, "everything I did wasn't good enough." His eyes remained as low as his voice. "I was the devil for not believing in Him, I was the devil for refusing to go to church, I was the devil for waking up, for breathing, for living...

"...for living..." He repeated, his voice shaky as he said it again.

His shoulder tensed slightly, taking a loud breath in, a temper rising like mercury in a thermometer. "And you know what?" He rhetorically asked, sitting up in his chair, his eyes off of Seamus', his words sounding directed to someone else. "Maybe I am him. Maybe I am the devil, you were right all along, and I deserve to die."

Seamus took a look at the spot Jordan stared, only seeing a shiny floor glistening back. Who he saw was in his mind, suffering from the memory of them, the flashbacks, the pain. His parents. He was seeing his parents, taking out that agony out on them. Almost as if...he were suffering from something...what did his parents do...?

Tears suffocated Jordan's bloodshot eyes again. "I deserved that torture you put me through," he mocked, "everything you said and did. What about that?!? What you did?!? A man and a woman of God, it's simply a lie!" He began to yell, Seamus feeling uncomfortable and anxious. Yet no one walked through that door to save him. Eddie only watched with those sad, puppy dog eyes.

Seamus could still feel them.

"You're as bad as I am!" Jordan screamed, his fists clenching, knuckles turning whiter than white. "I may be the devil, but you're the sin!" He yelled a final time, taking a sudden breath as he caught himself. The memories in front of his eyes faded, leaving the warm room of the police station, the blue floor, and that detective with ninety nine problems.

His hands were sweaty as he wiped them on his jeans, taking deep breaths to keep himself from breaking down again. He swallowed back his saliva, biting at his lip again as he returned to that eerie, yet relatable person. He closed his eyes for a moment, opening them again as he relaxed his surging nerves, feeling his anger wilt like his life.

Like the other's life.

And maybe that was a good thing.

"That's why I chose the seven deadly sins." Jordan muttered, sniffing lightly, meeting his orbs with that other pair in the room. He licked his lips. "They're all a devil has anymore."


	12. Monitors and IV's

He stood there under the eight o'clock moon, staring straight ahead, his eyes down, breathing in the winter air, feeling it turn his nose red. He sighed to himself, a puff of his breath being seen in the bitter air. He felt guilty being here, but he'd have to come back sooner or later, doing something he, not hated, but disliked. Only because of himself.

It was his fault he hated doing it, he has made it to be a bothersome task, a chore now instead of a necessity. He hadn't done it in so long, it'd be a month if he waited a few days. But he didn't wait, he could he if truly wanted, but he didn't. He wanted, but didn't want. Yet there he was, letting the fresh air meet his lungs, allowing him to breath in something other than the remains of or smoke itself.

It felt nice.

He closed his eyes, trying to make his situation better, yet nothing, but guilt corroded his system, eating him from the inside out, he could feel it in the marrow of his bones. The deep breaths wouldn't help, the whispered words wouldn't help, closing his eyes hurt just as much as opening them. Because when he opened them, he faced reality. When he closed them, he dreamt a nightmare. The same nightmare.

Over. And over. And over.

He slowly opened his blue eyes, reading and reading again the words in front of him, chiseled in stone. Quinn Ivan O'Doherty, loving father, terrific husband, honest friend. A body in a box buried six feet under, though his flesh was no longer there, his wounds remained. That's how Seamus felt about himself. Like father like son.

He bit his bottom lip, not knowing what to say, he was alone, so he could say anything, but it felt like a thousand eyes stalked his every step. He sighed again, feeling a wind pick up, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand. He never really liked the winter, never liked the cold, to think he should've gotten used to it based on how cold his life had grown.

He coughed lightly, somewhat alerting his father's presence in letting him know he was there. After all that time he avoided his father's grave, he was here. And although it was only him there alone, it felt just awkward as if his father was standing right before him. He licked his chapped lips, trying to find his voice again.

"Hey, dad."

It felt odd, but comfortable to speak those words.

He laughed nervously, looking down before peeking back up at his father's grave. "It's been a while." He spoke a little louder, studying the rough edges of the tomb. "I'm sorry about that, life's just been really hard for the past few weeks, but that's no excuse to stop seeing you. Or mom." He shook a little, the wind getting stronger before dying down.

"It's been really hard without Ashley." Seamus admitted, hanging his head. "But you probably already know about that." He heard his own words, retracting them as he rephrased them. "Actually, it's probably better if you wouldn't know." She can't be dead...she isn't...is she...? "I hope you haven't met her yet."

He sighed again, trying to keep his hands warm, tucking them in the pockets of his overcoat, it helping, but not helping. He bent down slowly, taking a seat on top of the ice and snow, feeling the cold travel up his thighs, his legs shaking. He cleared his already clear throat, a habit of his own, a way to fill the silence. He read the name again, trying to tell himself that this was who his father had become.

But who had Seamus become?

He sucked in a shallow breath. "I know it's been over twenty years, but...it still feels like I lost you yesterday. I lost you today. I'll lose you tomorrow." Seamus let his head fall. "It still hasn't gotten through my head that you're gone. I'm not used to living without you, these talks aren't enough." Nothing was enough to calm Seamus' mind. "They aren't even talks. You don't answer, I'm just speaking to a stone.

"But I keep coming back." He shook his head, humiliated in himself, wasting his time, spent spent at work, with a loved one, time spent to find himself, just to talk to someone who wasn't there. But he kept coming back. There was something kept drawing him back. He didn't feel his father's presence, he didn't hear his voice, he didn't see his face. It wasn't letting go. It wasn't hanging on.

"I wish Stef got to meet you, she would've liked you." Seamus rambled, feeling the freezing temperature turn his legs numb, but he had gotten used to the feeling. It was all that burrowed into his heart. That and a dagger with Jordan's name on it. Jordan's blood on it. "She's a lot like you, she has your sense of humor. I know, she's...she's only seven, but I can see it."

He smiled when thinking of his daughter. "She has your personality, too. Humble, innocent, always thinking of others." He removed his hands from his pockets, feeling the air hit them again. "Observant as hell." He stifled a chuckle at that, noticing the little things about his daughter, realizing that this was the most he had paid attention to her since it all.

That guilt came back.

He turned his head to the side, gazing between the metal bars surrounding the cemetery, staring out into the field of forest and trees. To get lost in something like that. That's how his clustered mind felt, and how he felt about it. "Hell, she probably knows more about this case than I do." He shook his head, aiming it back down to the icy ground beneath.

"And...as much as it might be wrong for me to say this..." Seamus swallowed, giving his words a second thought before speaking. "...maybe it's better for her to see the bad in the world...so she can be able to face it instead of fearing it..." He sighed again.

"...maybe it's better for her to know..."

He let go of a breath, blowing it into his lap as his hands shook from the cold. "This case is going to be the death of me." He transitioned, speaking more what he needed to more than what he wanted to, finding himself in a situation with, not just words, but of places. He did and didn't want to be there, to see what had become of his father and what had become of himself.

He felt like a tomb himself.

Seamus shook his head. "You wouldn't believe the fucked up shit I've had to hear. I don't think I can take anymore." He sighed, resting his arms arose his knees, his head upon his forearms as he stared blankly at that piece of crumbling stone. How nice being laid to rest must have felt, must be, to know your soul is at peace.

But there were others still out there, their bodies, their souls, haunting, roaming, in pain with their eyes still open. Their bodies decaying, deteriorating, the flesh wrinkling, darkening, falling off, caving in. The bones prominent, broken, protruding through. Blood bathing them, fear still working inside of them, their organs just lain there to rot.

Their ghosts, spirits, souls having nowhere to go, having no choice, but suffer life as they knew it. Their bodies they cannot return to, others they cannot possess, they can't wake up from their nightmares, they can't sleep. Translucent as they fade from life, turning to see through, to invisible, and to nearly not there. But...they still were.

Lost. Pained. Suffering.

Lust. Pride. Sloth.

"You've probably met them." Seamus continued, thinking he was just speaking to a rock, but feeling as if it was something more. Perhaps there was a chance of a life after death, but no one would truly know unless they died. Die...to just leave the others guessing. "James Wilson, Dan Gidlow, Aleks Marchant." He listed their names, remembering the death and defeats those men experienced.

"I still feel like they were good people." Seamus admitted, letting the apathetic side of him settle away for now, his somewhat emotional heart returning to its rightful home. "It was just a few mistakes they made, shouldn't people be given a second chance?" He asked, staring ahead to find some sort of answer.

Maybe life wasn't about second chances.

Seamus felt his lungs decompress. "They were good people, they just messed up from time to time, all humans make mistakes, I know." He caught his words in mid air. "I know..." He repeated, mistakes were what his life was supported by. The mistake of letting his father go to work that day, the mistake of losing Ashley, the mistake of ignoring his daughter, his job, his best friend until it was nearly too late.

Mistakes.

A man's enemy. A man's best friend.

Seamus kept his voice to himself a for a few minutes, time passing before he could even blink his eyes. "He told me about Joe Esten today." Seamus began, Seamus slowly adjusting to the cold, or the cold adjusting to him. He couldn't feel his spine anymore. "It was hard to focus on who he used to be, all I could focus on was what he was to Jordan, and what he is now."

He pursed his lips while shaking his head, unable to...look at his father in the eye. "Just to remember of somebody as something awful...instead of the person they really were." His resentment against his own thoughts doubled, dragging down his heart. "I've never felt so guilty." He whispered, shaking his head again.

Yes, you have.

His head shot up at that, the words sounding as if they were spoken in the back of his mind, but right in his ears. He didn't recognize the voice immediately or the seconds after. It sounded like his own, his conscience, the devil side fighting against his angel. But he wasn't an angel. It sounded like Jordan's voice, putting him down in order to face his reality. It also sounded like his fathers...

...he felt himself tear up, to hear that voice after so long...but in the cruelest of ways...

He maintained a trembling breath. "He was taken over a month ago, December 26th, it was around eight thirty in the morning." Seamus recited, the date book of his mind being cluttered with the facts Jordan gave, and the pain each person gave him, each abduction, each death. It terrified him, just imagining being in their shoes. To think that he was almost in their shoes...

"He was a waiter." Seamus continued, telling his father the life and death of Joseph Esten, just pretending that his father could hear. Only his own ears were what listened. "He had a shift that morning, nine to two, he was working for tips, but I don't think it was the money he worked for. It was the people. He was...a people person, seemed like the person I'd get along with. You'd get along with."

He paused. "I'm sure you two have already figured that." He chuckled to himself, his thoughts all over the place as fatigue began to settle in again. "He was taken that morning when walking to the diner, it wasn't so far, merely a few blocks away." That fear began to build up again as the scene kept playing, memories to Jordan, just interpretations to the detective.

"Jordan was just waiting in the shadows, waiting to take that life away..." His heart didn't miss a beat, but added one too many. "...Joe disappeared that morning...the last person to see him alive was Jordan..." His voice trailed off, growing weaker and weaker.

He was the last person to see him die, too.

There was that voice again.

He still didn't recognize it.

He ran his hand over his face, feeling the prickle of his stubble growing back, he hadn't shaved in God knows how long. He ran his fingers over it again and again, telling himself without words that he needed to take care of himself, but know he wouldn't anytime soon. His hands ran over it, reading it like braille, it telling a story of how low he had sunken in life.

He himself was something he, too, didn't recognize.

"Jordan he said he was one of the quiet ones when he woke up, but loud still." He repeated the story he heard only moments ago, a story being Seamus' last straw, that last grain of sand tumbling down in his timer for the day, he couldn't stand to hear another. He couldn't stand to hear the first. "He just kept asking for help..."

Seamus raised his hand to his mouth, his mind not in control for a moment as he began to chew on the nail to his thumb. "He took him because he was sloth." Seamus revealed, lightly nibbling at the keratin of his finger. "Didn't do much in his life, never advances even when he had the chance." He pulled his thumb away from his mouth, the top being covered in spittle.

When did you pick up that habit...?

He sighed to himself, balling up his hand as he placed it back on top of his knees. "He had many job opportunities at his fingertips, all farther away than a six minute walk, but paid more than just tips by the hour." He blew another breath, watching it fade like he would anything else in the world. Like himself in the mirror. "He used to write a lot, and he was good at it, probably would have become successful if he tried."

He looked out into the forest again, his eyes following the path of leading up to it. "Newspaper companies, journalistic writers, story writers would have hired him once seeing his work, he knew this himself. But...he didn't try. He didn't move on from his standpoint in life... He could have been an author owning thousands, millions. Instead...he died a waiter at the corner diner with a pocket full of singles and change."

Seamus heard his words, his ears rendering them as not of his own. They didn't sound as if they came from his mind, they came from his mouth, from his person at all. As if a parasite had dug into his mind, taking control over him, turning him into someone completely different. Someone who he wasn't, but was. The changes were slow, but coming on too fast as there wasn't a second in between Seamus seeing him as himself and the someone else.

Seamus took in a deep breath, trying to paint his mind white, a new canvass to draw on, a fresh mind to start over on, to begin again with his thoughts. "Jordan said the fear in his eyes was the most memorable, the most beautiful." He closed his own. "He said it was because he had always seen those eyes so happy. To see them something other than that...

"...he fell in love with those eyes."

He opened them to see his father's tombstone again, the cold fading away his senses. "He said Joe was desperate for his life, begging and pleading to be freed. Making excuses, trying to settle deals, using tactics such as bribery..." He shook his head subtly, his cheeks, he could feel, burning with a light pink.

"The only time he actually tried in life was when he was at risk of losing it." His hand twitched, himself forcing it back down as it went to raise back to his mouth. "His attempts only landed him in death...death already is ruthless. His demise was crueler than death itself, darker than that black curtain to pass over your eyes."

He felt possessed.

"He was...placed in a snake pit..." He didn't need to say anymore, but on his words went. "The anxiety he held was much greater when the snakes were released." He could still hear the slithering and hissing from the detailed explanation Jordan provided. "His awakening was just as quiet as his death...he couldn't even let out a scream before the first snake had bitten him...

"...there were twelve snakes...each had bitten him...three times at least..." He swallowed. "He died within the hour, his system bring broken down by the venom..."

He didn't close his eyes. He didn't want to reopen them to this nightmare. "I think his death was the worst...to deal with so much pain with a death creeping onto you. Not knowing when it would hit until it did..."

He swallowed, keeping his head low.

He couldn't take the picture in his head, but he was the one who has put it there. Jordan's image of it was fading with time, but Seamus recreated the masterpiece to haunt his mind for at least a few hours to come. Unless he drowned the picture...did he really feel like drinking himself to sleep again tonight...? Since when did he feel like it...? Since when was it a necessity...?

He squinted his eyes shut, but the strain only make the image more detailed within. The bites punctured all over his body, his neck, his arms, calves, chest. The blood running out with some drips and drops of venom mixing and coursing his system, turning it toxic, bane, and excruciating. Just to feel the poison break down his body, feeling numb as the sensation traveled from the bites to all around.

He was paralyzed, having to suffer the pain without letting that pain out, without help to arrive, without letting anyone know he was dying. He couldn't, his mouth frozen shut, his eyes stuck open as his death soon washed over him like a wave over the shore. Just leaving his body to rot, his eyes remaining open, and himself to be feasted on by the snakes that were only advantages for a murderer.

Much like a death taking place at that very second Seamus sat in that cemetery. With a poison coursing through her system, not of venom, but of one just as destructive. And...perhaps worse...

Seamus cleared his throat. "I, uh...I visited mom today." He told the ghost of his father, the silhouette, the thin air that owned a presence of Quinn O'Doherty. "Couldn't visit her without visiting you." He sniffled, feeling tears come on. "She's strong, much braver than I could ever be... She's doing okay for now, but...she knows she doesn't have that much longer left." His lips pouted and trembled.

He removed his glasses, letting out a few small sobs as he wiped at his eyes, he hadn't realized his sensitive he truly was when speaking of his mother. It was another picture he couldn't stand, but in his mind it lingered, just seeing the woman who raised and loved him...just wither away in front of already scarred eyes. As if his heart couldn't take any more damage.

"I don't know how she can live while watching her timer tick down..."

I don't know how you can either.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His heart thudded in his ears as he sauntered through the labyrinth of hospital hallways, stairs, elevators, and a parking garage or two. He swallowed his own breath, his stomach churning as he slowly made his way to the room he was searching for, his head feeling light and weak. It had been nearly a month since he had seen the inside of this place, and the guilt began to pile up as he took each step.

Until he met the seventh room on the sixth floor.

He felt his saliva thicken as he stood just in front of the door, fearing the moment that lay ahead, but knowing that they would lay ahead. He was unsure about resting his hand on the doorknob, taking a step and then another into the room, witnessing the slow demise of his own mother before him. He couldn't bare to see himself wasting away, he didn't think he could live to see another do so, too.

He bit his bottom lip until his teeth were beginning to break the skin, his reluctance showing through as he wrapped his fingers around the metal handle of the pale, white door. With a sigh, he slowly pushed the door open, taking a step inside, the material of his shoes sounding soft against the tiled floor. His hands grew cpammy as he let go of the knob, slowly making his way down the small hall and to the right.

To the bed of his mother.

His eyes turned the corner before his body, seeing a frail, decrepit woman laying in her bed, her arms thin, her stomach thin, her face thin. Her eyes so tired, her hair losing itself, the color gray still although there wasn't much left to tell. Her bones were almost protruding through her raw ones skin, she did eat, but it was her illness wearing her down.

The sights and sounds around her were all that he had expected, and some Jordan had described himself. Tubes of all sorts tucked inside of her veins, a splint on the pointer of her left hand, oxygen being given to her lungs through a tube to her nose, her lungs seemed to barely move. Nothing, but beeps and boops filled the room with sound, and nothing, but monitors and IV's filled is field of view.

She didn't even look like the woman he had grown to love.

She didn't appear as the five foot five woman who had kept him under her wing. She didn't own a smile like she did everyday of her life, even when times were difficult during the loss of her husband. Her hair wasn't full and blond, reaching her shoulder blades, her eyes weren't that crystal blue as they were more of a dull periwinkle. Her skin wasn't so lively as if was even paler than he remembered it.

She didn't look like Erin O'Doherty.

What had happened to his mother?

What had happened to his wife?

Himself?

The air froze in his lungs.

...watching his mother slowly fall apart...it only reminded him of himself...

He swallowed to clear his throat. "Uh...hey, mom." He greeted her, his hands of ice melting from the chill outside to the warmth inside. But on the inside, in that very room, was still bitter cold. The woman turned her head in Seamus' direction, the action slow, perhaps painful as her neck was stiff, but it lit up her eyes to see her son standing near the foot of her bed.

"Seamus?" She quietly asked, her voice hard to hear in both aspects. It was hushed and low, and didn't sound like that voice he had stuck in his ears from his childhood. "Seamus...is it really you?" She wondered, her Irish accent sticking out as always, holding out her hand towards her son.

Seamus wanted to cry, feeling a wave of tears drown him. "Yeah, mom, it...it's me." He choked out, walking to her bedside and holding her delicate hand, her skin so paper thin and fragile. He took a seat in a chair next to her bed, still holding her hand as if his life depended on it. Her life did.

She sighed, closing her eyes as she lightly smiled, pleased with seeing her son again. "It's so good to see you..." She told him, opening her almost opalescent eyes and following Seamus' direction with a turn of her head. She grinned a bit wider, her dry lips cracked and withered. To hear those words and that voice from that face...

Seamus bit back another sob, he felt in as much pain as his mother. "How have you been?" He wondered, a glaze of tears over his eyes, he couldn't control them more than he could himself. He tried to ignore them...just like he had with everything else in his life...

She took a small breath, Seamus seeing it as one of her last. He turned away, unable to see her once the thought passed through his mind. "As alright as I can be, I suppose." She answered, tilting her head back up to her son, seeing his eyes adverted to the floor, away from the life passing before him. She let go of a breath in the form of a sigh.

"How about yourself?" Her voice was frail, sending Seamus away, but her accent brought him back as it felt like home.

He shrugged his shoulders, avoiding her eyes still, focusing on one of the monitors that read her vital signs, her temperature, her blood pressure, her heartbeat. He saw the beats per minute, but they didn't feel real, nothing felt real if he could feel the beating of someone's heart. Ashley's, his father's, his mother's, his daughter's. Even his own...

"...I'm doing okay..." He lied, he wasn't even hanging in there anymore. He had let go a long time ago, but somehow, couldn't leave the past behind. Holding on, but letting go. He did both. He did neither.

His mother saw.

Stefani understood.

She placed her hand on Seamus' arm, wanting him to admit and confront the truth of all. "You don't sound okay." She noted, studying her son for a few seconds. "That's coming from a person like me." He shook his head, lowering his eyes again, hating it when she talked that way. "What's troubling you?"

He found the courage to look at her in the eye, but when he did, he couldn't admit the truth to a soul so damaged. "It's...it's nothing, mom." He told the woman dying in her bed. "Nothing I need you worrying about." Her eyes grew sad at that, the reason he came here was to talk, talk to his mother before their days were up, talk was the reason, but talk he wouldn't. He couldn't take the sadness in her eyes.

"How's everything been here?" He asked, changing the subject to something he knew would lead right back to the topic he tried to avoid. Himself. Erin shook her head, understanding Seamus' reluctance to talk.

"It's nothing too attracting, same is as same was." She answered with a tired voice, Seamus feeling guilty as if he were keeping her awake. Keeping her alive. "They hired a new nurse. Bek, I think her name is." His mother told, trying to liven things up. "Quiet girl, but kind. Always sneaks me another sweet or two with my meals." Seamus grinned at that. "...that's something else I'm going to miss when I'm gone..."

That smile of Seamus' faded.

He sighed a sigh of pain, his organs trembling of the thought of losing his mother. "Mom...don't talk like that..." He begged, looking back down on her, his eyes as desperate as her's.

"Only if you accept it, too." She was quick to return. The stare between them was heartbreaking, Erin had already accepted her death, whereas Seamus was far past denial. "You always had trouble accepting the truth." She continued, watching Seamus' eyes drop once again. "You knew what it was, but didn't allow yourself to believe it."

She took a breath, sitting up in her bed, Seamus holding out an arm, a hand just in case she needed it. "Remember when you were eleven?" She began, that bright side to her returning for a small moment. "When your father and I sat you down and told you about dear old Santa Claus?" The two chuckled, Seamus hearing that he had his mother's laugh.

"You were crying your eyes out, telling us that we were lying to you, and you'd prove it." She held a hand to her mouth, silencing her snickers. "Do you remember that?" She asked, her tired eyes being uplifting in the strangest of ways.

He nodded his head, feeling warn tears enter his eyes as he smiled. "All to well." He answered, sniffling as he chuckled again.

It had been forever since he had laughed.

Erin smiled, pleased that he had kept that memory after all that time. "You stayed up all night long on Christmas Eve, just sitting by that fireplace in your blue pajamas, waiting for that moment of truth." She tucked a blond curl back behind Seamus' left ear. He looked at her with a broken heart, that's all he could feel when gazing back at her.

"What did you learn that morning? When your father and I came down with the presents?" She asked, waiting for an answer from that voice that sounded just like his father's.

Seamus shook his head, not knowing how to answer as he stared ahead at the glass window on the other side of the room. He watched the setting sun, the orange fading into a red fading to a deep blue that would soon engulf the sky...

~~~~~~~~

He stared up at that deep blue sky, wishing for the sunset to return.

~~~~~~~~

"I learned...that my childhood was a lie." He joked, earning a giggle from his mother, she always appreciated his humor. A trait he inherited from his father. A trait he passed down to his daughter.

Erin shook her head, seeming more awake and lively than she had just seconds ago as she bled into the bed, letting her cancer do its work. "No, silly." She teased. "You learned about truth, and who to confide in when it came to that." She answered for him, Seamus just sitting as he listened to his mother's words of wisdom.

Seamus shook his head. "I don't think that lesson stayed..."

Erin cocked her head, hearing and seeing her son's doubts. "Now, I understand that not all truth can be as innocent as a man who gives toys to children." Her laugh was something that kept Seamus going. Her death would break him down. "But...no matter what it is, you have to believe it." There was a slight pause in her words, during the silence, she tried to catch her breath. "Seamus...I'm not going to be around for much longer."

Seamus teared up at that.

"I'll be lucky if I make it to the end of February." That was only twenty nine days away...she didn't even have that... "And I know that's going to be hard. I've had to live with it when Quinn passed, and...it's a feeling you wouldn't want, but everyone has to experience it." She stared at Seamus right in the eye.

"I don't even know what that feeling is...but all I do know is it's as healthy as it is deadly." Seamus looked up towards the ceiling wanting his tears to recede, blinking rapidly as they threatened to fall. "And it's beatable. With time you get passed the hardship, I did, and I know you will." She took the time to catch her breath again. "And I think...if you begin to accept it now...the pain will already be half done."

Seamus simply sat still, letting the words sink in, but he knew they wouldn't stay.

He could feel his mother's eyes on him before he heard that accented voice again. "And that isn't just for you to be able to deal with me down the road. That's everything in your life, to accept the truth, and to trust in others." She rested her back against the bed again. "There's something bothering you, I can tell. You're part of me...and although there are still many mysteries about me that I haven't figured out, I know myself like the back of my hand."

Seamus only lowered his head to his hands holding it as his mother sighed, trying to get through to her son. He was always a stubborn one, but she had her ways. "How's Stefani?" Erin asked, placing her hand lightly on Seamus' back. "Last time I saw her, she was just entering the first grade."

That was five months ago...

...five months in the hospital...

...not even one to go...

Seamus sniffled, his head still buried. "She's doing good, getting good grades, making new friends, getting smarter and smarter everyday..." He wiped at his eyes, biting his lip to stop a frown from forming. "I don't know how she can keep a smile during a time like this..." He sniffed, Erin rubbing his back soothingly, in more pain seeing her son upset than she was with her death arriving sooner and sooner.

"That's what's bothering you..." She whispered, sitting up again, rubbing small circles into her son's back. She waited for his tears to end momentarily before speaking again. "I know it's hard without her." Her...she couldn't even say her name... "I can't imagine your pain, sweetheart. I'm so sorry." She held him close, placing a delicate kiss on his temple.

He let out a shivery whimper. "They're not even supporting her case anymore." He sniffled, believing that if he held onto his mother any tighter, he'd break her. "They're giving up on her...they shouldn't do that...she's still out there, she's still out there..." He cried to his mother, dealing with her struggle as he found it hard to breath.

Erin kissed his temple again. "Shh, shh, please don't overwhelm, sweetheart." She told him, his head rest against her bony shoulder. "Things are going to be okay, I know it's hard, and frankly petrifying...but you just need to have a little faith..." She held back tears of her own. "Have you told anyone about what pain you're feeling?" She wondered, gently rocking her son side to side.

Seamus swallowed back a loud sob before he answered. "There's no point...no one will listen to me...Eddie doesn't even anymore, he's losing hope, too..." His bottom lip quivered. "No one will listen...there's no one..."

"Don't say that, Sea." She told her son, looking down into his blue eyes. "Once you say it, you begin to believe it and I want you to know that that isn't the truth." Seamus kept his sobs own as he eased his nerves. "There's always someone who will listen. It's you who needs to tell." She ran a hand through his head, calming him as she would when he was younger, at the age of eight.

"You're not telling others how you feel, you don't stand up for yourself, your passiveness comes from my side of the family." Her fingers brushes through his blond hair, noting how long it was growing. "You need to let someone know, let someone in. It's scary to be vulnerable, but I want you to get better now before you hit rock bottom." He sniffed, taking in a small whiff of his mother's scent, a scent of black raspberries and trace of vanilla.

A scent he'd miss.

She swallowed.

"I want you to promise me you'll talk to someone." She told him, she felt herself growing tired again like she had multiple times that day. That week. That month. "You need to get better, keeping your feelings about Ashley and her case is unhealthy. You need to be able to express them, no matter how deep or personal things get." Her hand paused in his hair.

"You need to talk to someone." She reiterated. "If you can't do it for you, do it for Stefani. Do it for me. For your father, for Eddie, for Ashley." Seamus closed his eyes, even just the six letters of her name were enough to make him cry. "Please...I just need to know you will...I hate seeing you in pain, honey...

"...think of it as a dying woman's wish..."

Another section of Seamus' heart gave out hearing those words, knowing the inevitable was slowly creeping up onto them as they spoke. He couldn't let his mom die without knowing he'd be okay...he couldn't let his mom die...

But she would.

You used to say live and let live.

Say live and let die.

"I'll talk to someone..." He promised, a few tears breaking free from his ducts, rolling down his pale cheeks that still felt as cold as ice. "I will..." He let a breath out, attempting to break down his anxiety. "I will..." He repeated, proving his promise further.

"That's a good boy." She complimented her as she slowly lent back onto the mattress, Seamus still in her arms. Seamus sniffled, tears still sliding down his face to whatever lain below. "Just let it out, sweetheart. You're okay. I love you so, so much, Seamus." She whispered to him, resting his head on her chest, his ear pressed against her heart.

"Just listen while I'm still here, baby boy." She mumbled, running her hand through his hair again, her eyes closing slowly. Seamus did the same, letting out a somewhat solid breath as he listening to the soft beating of his mother's heart, thanking a metaphorical God for each one that he heard. "You're going to be okay, sweetheart. I know you will."

He heard her beating heart.

And for once, life seemed real.

~~~~~~~~

He stared down at his black shoes in comparison to the white snow, the cold covering him as it began to warm him. He sighed, hating to leave his mother in such a place, hating to leave her at all, but he had to continue on with his life for the day. His life that she was a part of, but not for much longer.

Soon, she'd just be a grave placed right next to his father's he'd sit in front of and mourn.

"She wants me to talk to someone." Seamus whispered to his father, knees still piled to his chest, arms hugging them as his neck was aimed low and aching. He swallowed, even his saliva seemed to freeze under, in, and on his tongue. He blew another white breath out into the air. "She's not the only one."

He hesitantly placed his hand to his coat pocket, fishing around before his numb fingers found a piece of paper. He pulled it out and held it in front of his face, the text being in dark blue letters on a small three by two tan card. His hand shook at he reread that information, making a mental decision as he contemplated the moments leading up to this one.

It was a business card left on his desk by Eddie, he hadn't found it until he was beginning to pack up his belongings at the office. It was the name, address, and number of a therapist, the office of him being close by, a twelve minute drive with no traffic. He flipped the card over, seeing the note Eddie made himself scribbled in black pen.

He's expecting you

Me, Seamus thought as he stood from his father's grave, but is he expecting what I'm going to say...?


	13. Talking About Me

They were nothing too dark, nothing in them to hide, nothing behind them to be concealed, no secrets, shadows, or ghosts casting over them that struck Seamus' attention. They were nothing too light, they opened, but not as a book telling all, they still held something within them, perhaps just the everyday sins of an average man. They still held something.

They weren't too dark. They weren't too light.

He concentrated on every detail, the spicks and specks that the human eye contained, how each one was different, how, and why. The good that person did, the bad. All could be told with just a look in the eye, by the color, shade, placement of every line, thin or thick, their hue, or the placement of the cracks that began to show. They told the story of a person, and how to tell the difference between a good man and a bad man.

That judgment alone was how you could tell. But Seamus' judgment wasn't alone, he himself truly wasn't as he had the accompaniment of loneliness, fading memories, and a family ripping from the seams.

He kept staring into those eye ahead of him, they weren't broken blue ones from the inside of an interrogation room, from the side of that terrifying man. They weren't frozen blue ones he always turned away from in the mirror. They weren't brown, not of Eddie's, not of Liz's, not of Stefani's...not of Ashley's... They were the eyes of a stranger, a stranger who he could and couldn't judge straightaway, Seamus' judgment impaired, and those eyes held both innocence and fault.

He concentrated off of the eyes and more onto the face, the face of a man he didn't know, but that face of that man, that mind of that man was to know all about Seamus. The face, the eyes, the mind of a man who called himself Dr. Joseph Lawson. Another rank in life, a detective, a doctor. A killer.

The man seemed friendly enough, but you can't tell much about a person based on the surface, the details and facts where what lain on the inside, either in an orderly way, or strewn from left to right. It wasn't known until you talked to that person, talking was something Seamus dreaded, what he hated more was something that Jordan put as 'Talking About Me'.

It alone was a topic he avoided, it wasn't to hide from selfishness or out of some sort of kindness in his heart to talk about others instead. It was a similarity he and Jordan shared yet again, the reluctance to talk about one's self. It wasn't so much for the others out there, it was more for Seamus himself, to spare himself of that pain. He was already living a life so broken and shattered, why would he want to poison the air he breathed with those words of his life?

Because someone people just want to watch the world burn.

What would it burn with first? The downfall of himself? The many tears he cried, the toxicants he let break down his body with every beer he threw back, the hours he spent just staring at the front door in the early morning, just waiting for her to walk through it. The bondage with his daughter? They were the flames themselves, each one crackling and snapping as he listened, he couldn't tell which was loud, the fire or his own fret and fuss.

The weary friendship with Eddie? Could you even call it that anymore? That was the smoke, the realization being hard to take in, reality drowning him in a thick cloud of ash from Jordan's cigarette. He couldn't breath, and always kept wondering whether or not he wanted to. The debt he owed to Liz? Those were the ashes, the cinders, the embers he lived in and on. Sleeping on them, breathing them in, letting them consume him. Seeing the gray float before his eyes, to smell that sharp scent of them, the hear the silence they created like snow, how they fell apart in his fingertips, the taste being as bitter as the heart owned by him.

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

Ashley? There were words, yet there were none when it came to her. The questions needing to be asked, but reluctant forced them back down other's throats, and his own. Ashley was the gasoline that started it all, that arsenic substance dousing everything around, creating a home for the fire to stay. It left a trail for it to follow, a blood trail of its own that burned red as well as orange and black.

His life was a fire and he was just beginning for someone to put it out.

"Seamus."

He flew back into reality by the two syllables of his name, blinking a few times as his eyes ran up to meet those green ones of guiltlessness and fault. Yet when comparing them to his own eyes, his seemed to hold more blame than the other's.

"Your friend, Edwin Cardona, he's mentioned you a lot to me." Dr. Lawson spoke, as much as Seamus felt off in a setting as such, that voice made things more comfortable. Not tolerable, but comfortable. "Do you know as of why he would want you to see someone so...urgently?" The man asked, sitting and looking dignified.

His hair was brushed and combed neatly, it owning a bronze shine due to the lights in the spaced room. Seamus' was growing long again, doing all he could to prolong the haircut he wouldn't get. The doctor's clothes were neat and orderly, comfortable, casual, and suitable for his line of work. Seamus wasn't sure how long he had been wearing those same clothes.

Lawson's face was finely trimmed, only a bit of a beard showing through. Seamus wasn't in control of growing one. Lawson's eyes were well rested and a green forest to get lost in. Seamus' were bagged, creased, tired, and turning to a far shade of vast ocean blue. One's voice was stable. The other's was not. One's posture was straight. The other's mind was on a clear path. The other didn't own a path anymore.

One was the brighter side to life.

The other was not.

Seamus sighed, shaking his head as he thought. A single answer wasn't easy to think up, even just a simple one, even just one. "I guess I've been...falling apart recently..." He answered with a low voice. "He...probably thought I'd pull it together if I talked to a professional." Talk to a professional because the true friend won't listen...

The doctor seemed curious. "Why did you decide to come now?" He questioned, leaving Seamus a struggling mess when trying to think of a response. He didn't want to fully confide in a stranger, to fall into the open arms of someone who could easily stab him in the back. He kept the real reasons to himself, them being a promise to his frail mother, a swear on his father's grave, a hope for Stefani, faith for Eddie, a prayer to Liz, and a promise to Ashley.

...it's what she's want...?

Seamus licked at his dry, cracking lips, feeling them burn as his saliva ran over and through them. "...I don't know, really..." He chuckled nervously, rubbing his palms together in a worrisome way, in a worrisome habit.

Joseph laughed along with him, easing some visible tension between the two men. "That dreaded unknown, follows us wherever we go, eh?" They both chuckled again, Seamus digging in deeper to the words than they were intended to be. That unknown...not only was it haunting Seamus, but it was beginning to burrow into his skin and take over him.

That dreaded unknown.

Lawson cleared his throat. "You said you felt like you were falling apart." He noted, picking up words and phrases,thoughts and explanations Seamus didn't five two thoughts about before speaking. "Would you say it's you who is falling apart, or do you feel as if it's your world?" He questioned, Seamus hadn't really given something like that a thought.

Seamus sighed. "I...I can't really tell anymore..."

Lawson nodded his head. "Well, let's focus on this." He began, sitting up even straighter in his brown, soft seat. "I know it's hard to deal with a problem, but it's more difficult when you don't know what that problem is." Seamus bobbed his head to show he understood, he did all too well. "I'd prefer to look at the big picture first before searching through the details.

"Edwin, he first came to me...sometime during the earlier days of the month." Lawson remembered, going back weeks before, to Seamus, twenty seven days before today. Back to the fourth of January, a day to all, the day him, the day his life became a train wreck crashing over high seas, himself just left to rust as the people inside, his organs, his heart, his mind, his lungs were left to freeze and drown.

Can you help me?

"He didn't really go into detail on what was happening, but he said that you needed help." Lawson went on, Seamus' ears fading in and out of his own subconscious and the man seated just in front of him. "I think it's safe to say that that was when things started to break." To break, Seamus thought, doctor, they're far from broken and far from repairable. If you think that my life is just broken...then you have a life to kill for...

Lawson swallowed as Seamus remained silent. "I would like to start with events that have been going on in your life, people that have crossed it, things you've met, both good and bad." Seamus felt his stomach churn, he didn't want to talk about himself, his life, his failures and so little accomplishments, his doubts and very few hopes, his troubles and pathetic attempts at recovery.

'Talking about me'...

Lawson's eyes traveled to Seamus' hands, seeming to study them intuitively, being a detective himself, picking up clues and hints to help solve just another troubled life. "You have a wedding ring." Lawson picked up, his eyes running circles over it as Jordan's did. "You have family?" He asked, a question that was obvious, but the answer not so much.

Seamus nodded, answering without a word at first. "I have a daughter, Stefani." He informed the other, that feeling of vulnerability sinking into his aching gut. "She's seven years old, very bright, considerate." He listed the things about her, trying hard to think of how she was them compared to how she was now.

Even Stefani owned cracks in her eyes.

Joseph smiled when hearing of Seamus' daughter, glad that there was still some kind of innocence in a world so malignant. "She sounds like a sweet little girl." He commented, humming in approval of his own comment. Seamus simply nodded with a nervous smile, his chest feeling tight as the air seemed to thick to take in.

"There's my mother, Erin." Seamus continued, his head beginning to pound again by just an image of her in that hospital room. The tubes, the wires, the monitors, the blood bags, the IV's, the pain. His mother being so thin, so weak, nothing, but skin and bones was what she was made of, her eyes losing their shine, even her smile was missing the value of before.

There's my mother...

Seamus cleared his throat lightly. "I visited her earlier today. She's at Littleton Hospital and ER for cancer treatment." The detective explained, feeling the tables turn around him. He was no longer in that interrogation room, but the office of the therapist felt exactly like one. Being pinpointed with questions left and right, having been accused, prosecuted, tempted, tricked.

He didn't feel safe.

He felt like Jordan.

Joseph bowed his head in sympathy. "That must be hard for you to handle." He commented, his voice quiet. "I'm very sorry." Confiding in a killer...sympathizing with a killer... "How is Stefani when it comes to your mother?" He wondered, asking a se Seamus wasn't expecting. But...what was there to expect anymore?

Seamus sighed, meeting the words form in his head before he brought them to the air. "Accepting..." He replied, his voice close to a whisper. "More accepting then I have, really..." He admitted, feeling more guilt tear him apart from the inside out.

"Letting go isn't that easy to do, especially with someone close to you." The doctor commented, sounding as if he spoke from personal experiences of his own. "Stefani has known her grandmother for less than seven years while you've known her for almost..."

"Thirty five years." Seamus finished, the number of his age and the appearance of his face didn't match. The pain was beginning to age him faster than he could take a full breath, someone so young just wasting away, ashes to the fire that consumed his life.

Lawson's eyes grew soft. "It's easier to let go for some, not for all." He ended, proving his point in the end. He took a quick breath in through his nose. "Is your father in the picture?" He asked, crossing his legs with one over the other, his black shoes shining as he waited for Seamus' lips to part, waited for words to come flooding in like a sea.

Seamus shook his head, the easiest of answers to give. "Unfortunately no. He passed away when I young." Lawson's eyebrows knitted together in an expression of sympathy for the man seated before him. Listening to such words, to suck truths, to such a life that was unfair, agonizing, and absolutely terrifying.

The definition of lonely.

The definition of pain.

Seamus felt his stomach tie itself into knots, comparing the reality of his father's death to his words. He used light words, weak words when talking about the demise of his father, they weren't as shocking as the truth, they weren't as startling, they weren't as honest. There was a line and a leap between passing away and being murdered in the most careless of ways.

But Seamus didn't say that. He didn't open his mouth to speak of his father again, just leaving his death to presumed natural causes. He let the truth seep away behind clenched teeth, he swallowed it along with the rest of his pain, it went down like an oversized pill.

He sniffed lightly. "There's also my sister in law, Elizabeth, Stefani's aunt." The only person who can stand me anymore...and even then, I think it's just for Stefani...

The doctor nodded his head, writing down the names Seamus gave on a notepad on his lap, his pen scribbling away in what appeared to be black ink. "Did you have any siblings?" He asked, looking up from his sheet to the eyes of Seamus, his pen tap tap tapping to fill the silence as he waited for a response.

He gave a silent answer before his words. "No, I was an only child."

Lawson bit at his bottom lip, a habit he saw in Jordan, a habit he mirrored himself. "Just like Stefani..." He whispered to himself, setting aside that fact for later if he needed it at all. "Throughout all you've given me," Lawson began, looking over what he had written, "there's a person you haven't mentioned, almost as if you're avoiding them."

Here came the shot in the dark.

"Are there any problems you've been having with your wife?" The doctor asked, he could almost see the pain beginning to burst through Seamus' eyes. In his facial expression, in his answers, in his body language, tics, and attitudes showed some unwillingness in Seamus, an unwillingness that could go both ways.

Seamus remained silent, another factor that made Lawson suspicious, yet sympathetic for the man. Seamus tried to swallow down the lump in his throat, but it remained lodged to refrain him from talking, not like he wanted to do as so. "Seamus, you can tell me whatever there is that needs to be said." Lawson reassured, Seamus feeling skeptical about his claim.

"Everything's confidential."

Seamus denied that fact in his head, something or someone always ends up breaking that rule of confidentiality, it hurting either one or the other in the situation. And Seamus knew he would he the one to be burned by the backfire. He didn't feel safe anymore, ever since his life had been raided like a cupboard, he had given up on security and sanctuary of his own him, his own life, his own self.

And along with that, he let everything begin to slide, fade, and fall away. His personal life became a playground for others, to be toyed with, disrespected, and abandoned at the end of every day. His flaws and insecurities fell to the ground in a shatter of glass, bit and pieces that couldn't be mended. His truths and lies were noticeable, people questioning why he even did lie, or why he barely told the truth.

He only did when he was desperate.

Can you help me...?

Seamus sniffled. "It's not a problem with my wife, it's the problem of trying to live without one." He revealed, Lawson remaining silent as he pondered such words, wanting and needing Seamus to explain further. "You've probably heard the case, wife of DPD detective goes missing." Joseph raised his eyebrows, that sudden epiphany of two and two clicking together.

"It's a story the news won't have to report anymore, but I'll still have to live it." He shivered at how cold his life grew. "People just see it as another story to report. They overlook that fact that that story is someone's life, my life." A swarm of ghosts flew over Seamus' eyes in the form of tears. "And they won't understand that unless they become me, until they become me..."

He sucked in a breath once hearing the words he spoke, catching himself before he fell further, only prolonging the inevitable. He didn't feel like himself anymore, he wasn't himself, that shell of him was possessed by a demon not of his own, but a demon of his own doing.

Lawson licked his lips again. "This sounds less directed off of the viewers, and more onto something greater and personal." He noted, those words digging holes into Seamus' flesh, eating away what was left of him, the very little instead of the whole lot. Everything. Nothing.

Digging and digging, eating and eating.

"I really don't want to talk about me." Seamus hastily stated, fighting the urge to storm out of the room, fighting, but wondering if he should. Instead, he let that spirit take over him, the small part of Jordan that grew like a tumor with time, tearing him down until Seamus didn't exist, but his DNA reading the same of that killer.

Lawson sighed. "Then how do you expect to get passed this?" His rhetorical question nearly put Seamus in his place. Nearly. "Seamus, I believe it's obvious that the reason you're like this," He gestured to the other, "is because of your refusal to speak."

That only created more frustration to overpower Seamus' mind. "So it's my fault." He irritatedly retorted, eyes narrowoing slightly as anger ran through the paths in his mind.

Lawson didn't show any annoyance towards the other, no hatred back, or even the slight dip of his eyebrows. "You won't tell anyone what the matter is." He told him, sighing lightly, pleading to God that he'd mantain his professional, polite composure. He tapped his pen again and again against the white papered notepad resting against his thigh.

Habits.

Seamus huffed a breath, holding in a low growl. "No one will listen, I have no one who cares enough to listen." Seamus pushed back while pushing himself more and more towards the edge. Over the edge. "I've confided in a killer at my job because he's the only one who understands."

Lawson stared at Seamus' eyes from across the room, the more that pain was unleashed, the darker those eyes grew, he noticed. They faded from an sky blue to the deepest depths of the ocean. When that dark, you couldn't see the cracks anymore. The doctor kept that to himself, his own eyes appearing innocent as they made no judgments, they were slices of lime that sparkled when he blinked.

"A friend, a therapist, a killer." Lawson labeled, his voice stern as he named one after another, on down the line, descending from one to the next, a helpful solution to a pathetic attempt to heal oneself. A therapist was just in between. "At this point, I don't believe you need someone to understand, you just need a set of ears."

Seamus bit his tongue at that, taking the insult to the heart.

"What is it like to wake up without your wife?" Joseph asked, playing an unfair game, deciding that that way Seamus' facts would be straightened. He asked the painful questions, ones anyone would avoid to spare the misery, but the doctor just sprinkled it on top. It was cruel, himself knowing that as the hurt showed through in Seamus' eyes, but there was no other way around that hard job.

Seamus was quiet for minutes before he spoke, Lawson just patiently waiting, not repeating the question, not moving onto the next. "It's...different every morning." He paused, calming himself down before he felt the urge to cry build up. "Some days are better than others, but...I always end up waking up cold..."

He felt off as Lawson wrote down nearly every word to tumble out of his mouth, but nonetheless, he continued. "Sometimes I wake up on my side, sometimes her side. Most of the time, I don't even wake up in the bed because I don't sleep in the bed." He closes his eyes, keeping his tears in his eyes. "I don't know what's harder...trying to sleep knowing she's not there...or waking up without a reason to anymore...

"...it's just always so cold..."

He opened his eyes, turning his head to the side as he bit his bottom lip, actually wanting to taste the blood. "Have you ever taken anything to help you sleep?" Lawson asked as Seamus shook his head, sniffling lightly. "No sleeping pills? Nothing to help you relax?" He elaborated as Seamus answered with the same gesture, the shaking of his head, too weak to answer with words.

That sympathy grew a bit more on Lawson's heart like a mold, it tearing him apart to see Seamus, anybody like that, knowing that they couldn't sleep at night. They couldn't escape from reality as reality kept them awake. "Let me ask you this. Do you drink at all, Seamus?" He wondered, trying to put the pieces to solve at least Seamus if not his problem.

Seamus let out a cold breath, the mention of alcohol made him want to grab another beer. He blink slowly. "I...I do." He answered, his eyes still adverted away to the right side of the room. He was ashamed to admit it, unsure of why he even did, but it was something that needed to be said.

"How often?"

Seamus sighed as he answered, feeling weak when confronting the truth. "...often..." He answered, his eyes burning from the strain of holding in the tears. "It's only when sleep gets ignored by the pain...it's all that helps, even if it's just for a few hours..." He pursed his lips after that, never feeling so small in his life.

In his death.

Joseph took a few more notes down on his paper, Seamus not knowing whether they were helpful or hurtful to himself. Nothing helped. Everything hurt. "What do you typically drink when you do?" The doctor questioned, lifting his eyes from his sheet and to Seamus' fearful ones.

Seamus licked his lips. "Just beer..." He told the therapist, his hands shaking as he stared down at them, looking at anything except for those green eyes staring at him. "...it's always three that puts me to sleep."

"Does anyone know of your drinking?" That calm voice asked, Seamus feeling take the focus being on him. He didn't like it to begin with, but to have his pain highlighted in front of strangers would could care less? Who didn't care at all? That parasite of apathy going to war with his depression, it was enough to cause anyone pain.

"My sister in law has tried to help me..." He replied, remembering the many he times he shrugged off Liz's attempts. He kept sipping from that beer. "Eddie doesn't know..." He knew there was a problem, but Seamus wouldn't let him look behind the scene to fix it. He kept sipping from that beer. "I've tried to hide it from Stefani...but I'm pretty sure she's figured it out for herself..."

He let his daughter be introduced to the roughness of reality.

He kept sipping from that beer until his stomach was full and that bottle was empty.

Things were quiet before the conversation picked up again, Seamus looking down at his hands, Lawson reading over the notes he had taken down. All they were were sad, but they described Seamus perfectly. The condition of his life, how he reacted to it, the different person he was turning into, the depths he tripped in, the burn his heart felt as he let the fire eat him alive.

All written in smudged, black ink.

"What's day to day life like?"

"...it's not even life...nothing feels real anymore..."

Joseph sighed. "You said when you wake up, you feel cold." He remembered, trying to work his way around the obstacle in his way. Seamus' doubts. "What other feelings do you experience throughout a typical day?" He asked, pen in hand, the ink of the ballpoint beginning to bleed onto the paper.

Seamus stared at the floor, his eyes following the pattern as the colors of black, gray, and white stained his eyesight for the time being. "Aside from the cold...," he shook hid head as he thought, "I'm tired." He mentioned, feeling the creases under his orbs of blue darken. "I barely sleep...I don't sleep, I cry more than I sleep."

He ignored his tears again. "And when I get up...it's usually quiet, but yet again, Littleton isn't much of a city." He retraced the events of everyday life ever since that day, it was just the same things in the same order, over and over again in the same patter, a pattern running as smoothly as the blood through his veins. He was living after all... "When I get up everything hurts. It's not a natural pain of being sore, it's...worse...something that gets worse as days go by..."

Lawson took a moment before questioning Seamus again. "What hurts the most out of it all?" He wondered, asking more out of personal curiosity than his required job.

Seamus took a minute to think of the answer, his eyes trailing up and down the design of the carpet before his mouth opened again. "My head." He responded, thinking back to all the times it pounded and throbbed as he tried to continue his life. "Not my eyes, not my heart, not my stomach...my head." He repeated, letting go of a small sigh. "But soon enough, those begin to hurt, too.

"Everytime I see myself in the mirror, I look away." He admitted, closing and opening his eyes leisurely. "I don't even look like myself anymore, I can't stand it, but I can't fix it..." The many times he tried to find the pieces of his broken heart...to no avail...to such pain without them... "My heart hurts when I see Stefani...after all the poor girl's been through..."

His head began to push against his skull again as he let the guilt of his daughter abuse him again and again. "Growing up without her mother, having her aunt tend to her instead of her true parents, seeing me break into bits before her feet, her so called 'father'..." It all hurt to say, he had thought about it for the longest of time, but saying it aloud turned his heart lines into a flat line.

"It's been nearly a month and Stefani has seen Liz more than I..." He wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "...that's what makes my stomach hurt..."

"Do you feel as if you aren't good enough?"

He was frozen for a moment, the question meeting his ears as he realized the answer, the truth. "Liz should take her away...just like everything else in my life..." He feared that he wasn't good enough, he wouldn't be able to return to his feet, his roles of a husband, a father, and an officer. He'd forever be a broken man trying to mend his pieces, having his life fade right before his eyes.

Joseph turned his head to the side. "Why do you think that?" He wondered, interested in Seamus' life, finding his pain to be miraculous in all aspects.

"...so she can be protected from me..." He answered, his mind pulsating, his eyes burning, his teeth holding down his bottom lip before a sob could slip. "I don't know who I am anymore, doctor, and I'd rather have myself suffer than her." He rested his head against his hand, he could hear his heartbeat in his ears.

Lawson raised his eyebrows, seeing Seamus fall for himself. "That's a selfless act on your part." He mentioned, fighting a frown himself. "But is life without pain?" He questioned, not expecting an answer.

Bit an answer was what Seamus gave.

"The same as death without mystery."

Dr. Lawson was the one to bite his tongue then.

He looked down at his watch, counting the seconds it ticked as time passed before them, Seamus just wanting to get home to his daughter, to try and fix their frayed ends, he promised he would one day. He wanted it to be today. That's what he said about tomorrow. And yesterday...and the day before...

Lawson cleared his throat. "I understand you're a detective." He switched the topic, hoping it'd bring up cheerier times. Seamus knew that, nearly laughing at the idea. So little the man knew. "That's...impressive, if I may say." He smiled lightly. "Takes really brace people to do the work you do." Seamus nodded at that, but feeling no bravery as of late. "How has your job been recently?" The doctor wondered.

Seamus ran a hand through his long, blond hair, hating how it was, but he wouldn't be the one to do anything about it. "I can't tell the difference between that and home anymore." Seamus said in a low voice, turning Lawson's unfair game into a game of guilt, he had no idea how bad Seamus' life truly was, and now he was getting a front row seat, watching the star of it all unfold.

"They're too similar and it scares me..." Seamus finished with a light breath withdrawn.

"In what ways?" The doctor pondered aloud, his green eyes deep into Seamus', trying to see for himself before he was told the way it was.

Seamus' teeth held onto his bottom lip before his voice was heard again, it being gravelly and to himself, unrecognizable. "The quiet left behind," he began, "the stress and pressure, the reminders of..." He paused, his tongue dare not say that word, but it decided to feel that prick of a rose thorn as it did. "...of Ashley..."

His tongue bled.

"She's in everything I do and it haunts me..." His voice sounded of a ghosts'. "I can barely live at my house anymore without succumbing to the pain, I can't even work without having it draw back to her, I can't do anything anymore." He ranted, this being the most he had said in a while. The first ever time he talked about himself.

"I don't sleep, I don't eat, I feel like the dead walking among the living, but the living walking among the dead." He caught his breath, the last of his words still echoing off of the walls in the room. "It changes so quickly...I don't which I truly am..." He stated at the window behind the doctor, noting the dark sky, only guessing how late the hour was.

"Which do you feel like now?" Lawson wondered, the question forcing Seamus to finally meet the other man's eyes. He looked no older than forty, but well past his younger years of his twneties. His hair was the color of honey along with his beard, those green eyes making his face one to remember. Seamus' was one to never forget.

Seamus swallowed heavily. "...It's hard to tell...I can't even feel my heart beating anymore, but somehow I breathe..."

The wonders of life.

The wonders of death.

The reality of in between.

The doctor took a small breath in. "What is your work life like? How would you describe it?" Returning to those mandatory questions, something packed nicely inside of the box instead of outside.

Seamus ran his hand over his mouth again, his fingertips feeling over the bumps of his beard coming in. "It's nothing, but tedious anymore." He answered honestly. "Case after case, criminal after criminal..." He stopped himself, hearing Jordan's words instead of his own. "The case I have now will pit me out of my misery. Or whatever's left of me from the last one..." The answer being very little, just a ghost, a silhouette, a fading ghost you look into and see right through them to the other side.

"Your last case being?"

"Searching for my wife."

The tension grew stronger.

The men grew weaker.

"We haven't found her alive, we haven't found her dead..." He exhaled, letting out a breath, lucky that it wasn't his last, praying deep down that it would be. "I'll be lucky if I even find her at all..."

Joseph raised an eyebrow above the other. "Throughout your explanation, you switched from using the term 'we' to using 'I'." He noted, making sure Seamus knew it, too.

Seamus grimaced. "Because there is only 'I' anymore." He let his feelings gather themselves together before his thoughts started up again. "My team is giving up on her cade, my boss is forcing me to move on, and my friend agrees." That same friend who wanted Seamus to talk to somebody.

His grimace grew greater. "I don't think he had much faith to begin with."

Lawson let his mind work freepy as it connected certain dots to others, it may have been a spider web, but to him, he understood it. "That anger from before...," he brought up, "was it towards them?" He asked, anticipating the answer to be placed in his extended palm.

Seamus silently agreed. "Their care only went so far..." His eyes were falling away from the other's. "And even then...it didn't feel like much..."

"Why did you agree to move on from her case?"

Some where in that question upset and angered Seamus greatly. "I didn't." He harshly responded. "I can't." His tone grew a bit softer since then. "Her case is her life, that's something I'm in and something I can't let go of." This was a human life they were discussing, the life of his spouse. To Eddie, it seemed as if she meant nothing, she was gone, never coming back, dead.

His very own friend thought Ashley was dead.

"They keep telling me to admit the truth, but I don't know the truth." His voice grew shaky, not know what he felt anymore, with time, he just grew numb. "They won't help, they won't search, I'm alone in this and I'm lost..." He finally admitted, that truth that he was afraid of.

He finally admitted it.

To a stranger.

"They want me to believe she's dead..."

Joseph took a breath before asking another wonder. "Do you think she is?"

Seamus raised his aching eyes back up to the other's. His eyes were solemn as he spoke, everything of the man affecting Lawson's heart. "...I couldn't live with myself if she was..."

He was barely living to begin with.

Silence.

"What's the new case you've been assigned to?"

Seamus cocked his head to the side. "It's something I won't be a part of much longer." He paused. "They're ending it sooner than I can solve it." Their eyes just stared at one another's before Seamus continued. "A man murdered seven people and us getting sentenced for only a portion of those lives." He shook his head as his eyes lowered then closed. "They don't care about the reason, they don't care about the deaths...

"...all they care about is getting a paycheck at the end of the day that keeps them alive, basically." Seamus' eyes felt heavy. "It's a sick and twisted game of survival of the fittest." He ran his teeth over his bottom lip. "I'm just weight on their shoulders. Ashley's dead weight...and I'm just barely breathing."

Joseph looked down at the notes he took, his wrist twitching as if he wanted to write more, but not knowing what to. Instead, he shut his notebook, letting out a chilled breath. "I think that's enough for tonight." He told the detective, placing the small pad of paper on a desk next to him, blinking his eyes a few times, trying to comprehend all he had heard that night. "I'm glad we got to talk, I hope this helped you somehow."

He was about to drop his pen onto the table as well before his mind caught it, then his fingers. An idea ran through his mind that he decided to agree with. "Before you go..." Seamus lifted his head up at those words. He saw the man lift another pad from the desk, scribbling something across it before ripping it free from its binds.

This is a prescription for Ambien, to help you sleep." He told Seamus as he stood up, Joseph entending his hand out with the slip in it. "It's the least I can do as of right now."

The least he could do.

All he did was help.

Seamus was desperate enough to take any at this point.

He waited a moment.

He took the piece of paper from the man's soft hand.

***********

He was welcomed home by a dark house, he had gotten home too late to be greeted by warm lights, a home cooked dinner, the smiling face of his daughter, or the familiar face of his sister in law. From the outside to the in, there was no difference. Just the cold that came with an empty life, a life he was wasting by simply living.

He sighed at that.

He shut the front door, some snow catching a ride to its death on his boots, he took them off at an even time, leaving the ice particles to just melt. He shrugged off his overcoat, hanging it near the door as he looked around his house, feeling depressed at how dark it was. Darkness was all he was associated with anymore, and he was tired of it.

He held in a yawn as he stretched out his sides, making sure to lock the door thereafter, running his hand through his hair once again. He took a step down the hallway, it being followed by another, then another. It was nothing, but quiet in the house, something he called a reminder. A reminder of how shallow his heart was, how hollow his life was, how alone he truly was as he suffered in silence.

The good. The bad.

There is no in between.

Seamus was an exception.

As he took another step, he heard the distant sound of a door closing, the sound catching his attention, what little he had of it. As he met the end of the hall, he turned to see Liz shutting Stefani's door, she had presumably out her down for the night, Seamus pleased to know that she was still here.

Their eyes met, brown and blue, Liz lightly smiling herself, seeing that Seamus was home and safely. "Hey." She greeted him, whispering to not keep Stefani awake. He met her with the same reply, rubbing at his tired eye, now realizing how exhausted he was, but how no sleep would arrive.

"Sorry I was home so late." He apologized, the two making their way away from Stefani's door and to the living room. "I had a few unexpected stops after work." He confided, the action of telling the truth carrying on into that moment then.

"Where'd you go?" She wondered, the two taking a seat on the same couch, Liz appearing more comfortable than Seamus in his own home. Seamus thought of what to say, relaying the places he went and in what order, but of the three, one of them was the most important. His parents were to him, the dying and the dead, but what was living of him now was the highlight of the evening.

"Eddie thought I should...see a therapist. You know, after everything..." Seamus explained, hanging his head, his voice lower than low. Liz made a sound of sympathy and understanding, feeling bad for her brother in law, but knowing that where he went was step one on the road to recovery.

She scooted a bit closer to him. "How did it go?" She wondered, Seamus lofting his head as he sniffed, trying to keep himself awake at the moment. Liz cared a lot for Seamus, comprehending his pain, but unable to grasp how it felt. She wanted to help, but felt as if she could not, this was his situation, and now matter how much she was involved, she wasn't one to interfere.

This was her idea of help.

Seamus let out a shaky sigh. "Better than I thought, but in the end, I just felt helpless." He told her, shaking his head as he closed his eyes, never wanting to open them, but in the end, he would. He'd die with his eyes open. "He made me talk about Ashley." He told her, that name leaving the taste of blood in his mouth.

Liz lowered her head. "Did it help at all?" She wondered, her voice filled with concern. She placed a hand on Seamus' back, trying to comfort him in a time of pain, yet a time of need.

He felt tears leave his eyes without a say so, they rolled down his cheeks, pleased to be free. "It only made me miss her more." He choked out, hanging his head as sobbed lightly. Liz soothingly rubbed his back, not knowing what to do in a situation as such. She had never seen Seamus cry in her life, there were a few tears here and there at memorable moments, but to break down weep...

...she felt scared.

"I can't take this guilt anymore, Liz." He whispered, sniffling over and over. "I miss her so god damned much...why did it have to be her?" He asked, his emotions growing stronger. "Why her...why her...?" He asked and asked again, muffling his cries with his hands, he didn't want Stefani wake up and hear.

But she already knew how much he was hurting on the inside.

As much as herself.

"I can't live without her..." He cried, Liz trying to calm him to the best of her ability. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore...I just miss her...I need her so much..."

Liz pouted, unable to keep herself together. "It's okay, Sea. Please don't cry, I know you're strong." She assured him, whispering quietly. "Shh, shh, we'll find her. I know, it doesn't sound so promising, but I know we will. She's going to be okay, she will be, Sea."

"...I'm starting to forget what she looks like..." Seamus sobbed on, his hands running up to his hair as he tugged at it, letting out small bits of frustration here and there. "I miss everything of her...I feel like the only one anymore." His cries grew a little louder, he hadn't wanted to disturb Stefani.

He didn't want his wife to disappear.

"...we won't find her..." He was starting to let his doubt take over, his unbearable sadness winning for the night. "She's gone, Liz...I don't want her to be but...she is...she is, she is..." He wiped at his eyes until they were redder than red, more swollen than swollen, more blood in them than his body. "...I can't do this...why her...?"

"Seamus...Seamus, Seamus." She said his name over and over to gain his attention, his cries blocking her voice out. "Seamus, you're going to be okay." Liz said a little louder, that tone of voice catching Seamus off guard. He stopped his sobs momentarily as he lifted his head, that voice sounding like one he hadn't heard in an eternity.

Ashley's.

"Things are going to be okay, Seamus. I know it hurts, I'm hurting, too." The more she spoke, the more she sounded like that beautiful woman he had married nearly nine years ago. He turned his head to face her, his eyes aching and head swelling with pain. "You're going to be okay, though. You're going to get passed this pain, I know you will. I believe in you."

Silence basked over the two, Seamus just gazing at woman next to him, Liz looking back with those familiar brown eyes.

Those eyes...that voice...Ashley...

His head leaned in slightly as he captured Liz's lips with his own.

Liz was taken aback, not knowing what to do, everything feeling so wrong, but she hadn't had a kiss in so long. Seamus leaned forward, his warm lips on top of another pair, it had been forever since he had felt such intimacy. Since he had felt...anything... He sucked in her bottom lip, his hands holding her around the waist, deepening the kiss, her lips feeling just like Ashley's...

...but this wasn't Ashley...

That's when he let go.

Their lips lost one another's twntire and warmth as they both caught their breaths, Seamus' eyes staring into Liz's with deep regret and embarrassment. He removed his hands from her sides, trying to figure out what came over him as Liz awkwardly looked away, his inner pain growing into something she didn't want to be a part of.

"I think I should go." She whispered, staring at the carpeted rug, avoiding Seamus' eyes and Seamus entirely. He lifted his head promptly, lost for words as he wanted to apologize, yet the letters just crammed themselves back down his throat.

"Liz..." He managed to get out as he looked at her with sorry eyes, a look she could feel, but didn't return to. "Liz, I'm...I'm sorry, I..." As he spoke, she stood up from her seat, not saying another word, not looking back towards the blond, just making her way back to the front door. "Liz..." He tried again, standing from the couch himself, trying to follow her.

He heard the door close, advising that Liz had gone.

He couldn't breath for the longest of time, trying to think of what just happened, his life being thrown into a darker corner, his pain increasing, his hurt growing, his head ache worsening as well as an ache of his entire body.

He had kissed his sister in law, thinking it to be his wife.

He had sunken that low.

He was about to sink lower.

He wiped away tears of sadness, tears of regret, tears of pain, suffering, hatred, and resent. He swallowed his sobs as he marched his way to the fridge, eyes wandering as he grabbed the first beer he saw, unscrewing the cap, and throwing back bottle as if he were drinking water.

He didn't need that prescription to help him sleep. He had his own medication.

One beer bottle.

Two beer bottles.

Three.


	14. Sticks And Stones

His eyes flicked left and right across the windshield of his car, his mind racing, but feeling numb and dying. He couldn't think straight, his mind pounding to the core, it setting his organs ablaze, his nerves sensitive to every breath he took, his throat raw and red. His skin grew bumps, his bones shook, his body trembled. His teeth bit his lip, his lungs caught the air he took in, his heart hurt with each memory of his mind.

He flew down the interstate freeway, his foot pressing on that gas pedal, his eyes glued to the road, that anxiety in his heart all there for a reason, himself doing it with reason. With drive. He turned on his left blinker on, turning into the lane next to his own, keeping his eyes open and awake for that blue sign. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, until his hands he could not feel, until his mind grew sore with the scars it tried to heal.

He lifted a hand to his eye quickly, wiping away a lone tears he involuntarily let out, his stomach hurting everytime he faced reality, staring at it in its dead eyes. His mind could not capture what he was feeling, what he already felt, and what he soon would feel. He wasn't in control of his life, he hadn't been for twenty eight days, and he knew there would be a twenty nine.

And a thirty.

Events didn't matter to him anymore, moments just played before his eyes and froze as his mind was too fragile to get hurt again. There was no lapse in between this moment and that, only now, then, and what will be. He was getting worse, nothing helping the pain inside his bellowing heart, only he seemed to care about himself, but based on his appearance, his care was as little as theirs.

But for others...for others, it was stronger than...

...than himself...

He turned a right, knuckles still white as snow.

~~~~~~~~

Blond hair, light skin

Eyes of a blue

Innocence is as

Innocence will do

But innocent was not he

His life self centered yet unknown

As it ended with a loud

Crack of his bones

That was the life and death of Spencer Lovell.

Jordan smiled when his name came around, teeth grinding together as they clenched, his grin frightening to see. It wasn't the personality of the person he remembered keenly, nor the face that was unlike everybody else's in the world, for it was the eyes Jordan remembered. How a vast ocean of fear drowned them, that blue of them faded to a sickly pale, they beamed the brightest when he cried.

His smiled fully.

The way Jordan said his name showed deeper meaning between not the connection of the two persons, but between Jordan and the other's death. His eyes grew big, Seamus could tell he was relaying each and every second that went into taking Spencer's life. Each and every second that spilled out of Jordan's mouth, seemingly excited to talk about this moment in particular.

Spencer Lovell was twenty two, he lived alone, across from that haunting park on the crossroads of Ivy and New. The man wasn't in a relationship, yet he did have a few unsuccessful ones in the past few years. Months. Weeks, at times. His looks hadn't been the one to ruin anything, he was a fairly attractive male. It wasn't money, he wasn't the richest man, yet wasn't close to losing it all. It wasn't the usual reasons for a break up, cheating, constant arguments, lack of intimacy.

It wasn't just pretty girls he'd chase away.

Alongside a man he knew, but didn't, he shared an aspect with James Wilson. James ignored his family due to his ill tempered manner, growing far away from them until he lied about their existence. Spencer was one of the same, yet wrath wasn't his problem. He was once close with his parents, siblings, relatives of all sorts, visiting them often, seeing them from time to time, enjoying their presence as they did his.

Yet, one by one, connections were snipped, wires left frayed as Spencer's own blade sliced each and every one. First it was his farther family, aunts, uncles, cousins, they didn't appreciate him anymore for a reason he knew, but denied and denied again. It wasn't easy next, but he forced that blade into his hand, slowly slicing the bind of himself and his siblings, an older sister and younger brother.

Life was lonely as he only had his parents, parents who constantly reminded him of the bad he did, who he pushed away, why he shouldn't have, and how he should change his ways in order for no one else to be ignored. Spencer only fought back, and in the end, his parents were the one to push him away.

All for the same reason, the reason of Spencer.

He had only, but a few friends, friends since high school, some before, all dropping like flies once seeing who Spencer was turning into, he was a stranger they didn't want to meet. Frankly, who they didn't want to help. It was a war of brother against brother, and in the end, Spencer stood in a barren wasteland alone with nothing, but that blade he used to cut everyone off held loosely in his hand.

Angered like James.

Lonely like Dan.

Like Jordan.

Living in the quiet like Seamus.

He had some company, two dogs that he cared for with all of his heart, Zoey and Jasper he named them. They were all his life had anymore, all he had, him, him, him. He was the reason for his lonely life, he was the reason he had only himself to speak to, he was the reason every hour grew more bleak as days went on. Him, him, him.

His abduction took place on the eleventh of December.

It was one of the days snow decided to pay a visit, making everything that the eye could see a blinding white, and leaving every sound to be covered, the quiet deafening. Two key senses taken away, leaving only your hands to guide you, or someone else's. Someone else's hands to wrap up behind you, cover your mouth so silence was indeed granted. Someone's else's hands to restrain you, so you grew weak against the other.

Someone else's hands to drag you back to place where you'd be locked up until time no longer came to be. Where you'd talk to other prisoners before their voices slowly started to fade away. Where your turn would come up. Where you would be tortured. Where you would die.

Spencer Lovell was taken December eleventh in plain sight. He was missing for a month, having turned out to be held captive along with several others. He died a month later.

Due to his pride.

+++++++++++

He groaned as he woke up, his body freezing, throat dry, muscles sore, and head pounding away against the back of his skull. The side of his face ached, too, it burning with the feeling as if his skin were not there, exposed sinew being burned by the air. He hissed a little, trying to sit himself up, but failing to.

He attempted to sit up once more, his back arching slightly, his ankles and wrists keeping him in a star formation and bound tightly, making escape impossible along with any movement except for his neck. He could see only up to his hands, he was lain down and tied to something wooden, his eyes panicked as they flew left and right across a ceiling that was cracked, dry, brown, moldy, and weak.

He tried shifting his body weight to a single side, trying to shake the contraption he was on, yet it stood firmly into the ground. His eyes bounced back and forth around the room, stomach aching as he turned his head side to side, observing what he could to make out that he was a few feet above the floor.

His breaths became pants, him breathing in that same smell of mildew he had been taking in for so long up in that room he could only call a cell. The place seemed damp, worn down, and rickety, Spencer wondering where he was, and what happened to the building he was in. The room now was beigger than the one he had been in, lighter, yet still dark.

The other room, his prison cell, was small, cramped, perhaps underground as he remembered the smell of dirt, a smell he didn't pick up now. Only the mold. It also carried the scent of ashes as if a fire were constantly going on, or the scent had buried itself into the decayed walls. At least in that chamber he had the freedom to move around and attempt to breakout.

Now, he wasn't given those privileges. Here he was, tied to nearly a stake, awaiting what he knew would be his death.

That's what happened to the others, the ones on the other side of those decrepit walls. Ones like him, taken from life and left alone until sanity and reality started to make less and less sense. They were locked in rooms not so far from his, he'd keep his voice low as he'd speak with them from time to time, it was all he could really do.

He had learned their names, the ones who accepted the stark conversation, Spencer would cry and pray for them and himself every night. They were everyday people with lives they wanted to fulfill, dreams they wanted to accomplish, sights they wanted to see, people they wanted to meet, things they wanted to do.

Dan, Joe, Aleks...

They told him about their lives as he did them, their voices becoming soothing to him. They told them their dislikes and interests, hobbies and pastimes, their weakness and strengths, the people they missed that were in their lives. Their parents, their sisters, brothers, friends, roommates, spouses, girlfriends, husbands, children.

The memories...

He'd comfort them when they'd cry.

And as time went on, whatever time amounted to be in the end, one of the voices wouldn't answer when he called. At first he thought they were too upset to reply, but what Spencer thought were days would pass, and there would still be no answer from that voice. Later, another voice would go, one he talked to, one he didn't. Blown out flames of a candle, not even the wisps of smoke were left.

Now, his flame was in jeopardy. His voice was moments away from fading. His life. Himself.

Him. Him. Him.

"Help!" Spencer called, his light voice echoing off of the rotting walls. "Someone?!? Help! Help me!" He called again and again, his voice coming back again and again, it's all his ears took in along with the fast paced beating of his heart. He whimpered as he felt tears begin to form in his eyes, feeling as lost as ever as the world didn't care.

"Help me! Please!" He cried out again, desperate and distressed.

"It's always about you, isn't it?"

Spencer kept his breaths quiet, hearing that voice not of his own answer to his calls in the most menacing of ways. The voice was not of help, someone didn't hear his cries and come running to save him. This voice was hear all along, snickering as he heard the yelps and pleads of the other. The voice was of the one who had brought him hear, he could tell due to the tone, the tone of guilt and bloodstains, a voice like that.

Soencer panted, forcing his tears down. "Who's there?" He asked, the dust in the air visible to his petrified eyes. He took a breath in, feeling it dry his lungs. "Who are you?!?" He asked, his voice raised again, his arms flexing as he tried to remove his restraints, it only ended in rope burned around his wrists. The voice didn't reply, but Spencer could feel a thousand eyes on him.

"Hello?!?" He screamed, his back arching again only to smack back against the wooden object he lay upon, his spine tingling with pain.

"Those words..." That voice spoke again, seeming to ignore Spencer's questions and begs. "Someone help me..." He placed emphasis on the final word before Spencer heard footsteps take the place of that voice. His heart jumped to suffocate his throat, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't swallow, he felt the slightest taste of blood in his mouth, his jaw trembling.

The footsteps stopped in the room Spencer was trapped in, just above him, Spencer dared not to cock his head to meet the eyes of that sinister voice. He kept himself quiet, his shoulders shaking felt more than heard his heart race faster. "Selfishness is mandatory to survive to you." Were the last words the voice spoke before his face no longer became a mystery.

He looked down at Spencer from up above, a sinister man playing as the hands of God. Their eyes met in a frightening stare, both blue, both bold, one finding the other's as beckoning, the other as beautiful. The ones with power. The ones with fear. The stranger above him wore his lips at a fine, stern line, his eyes seemingly curious as they studied Spencer's face, his face burning itself into Spencer's memory, him wincing due to the pain of the action.

"I'll agree to say that all people hold some greed in them, but you cross beyond that line of pride." That voice matched that face well, dry, unsettling, and haunting. The man appeared to wear a small smirk as he walked to the side of Spencer, the only thing moving of him were his trembling shoulders, fear turning his body inside out.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Spencer choked out, regretting what he had said, wishing he had just bitten his tongue and let his life be taken with no extra hatred or pain. The footsteps stopped again as Jordan turned to face the other, his head twisting swiftly as Spencer flinched.

Jordan raised his eyebrows as he laced his hand around the side of Spencer's contraption, holding it firmly with his palm as his fingers dangled in between the rails. A wheel, Spencer realized, I'm on a wheel... "You, your life, your worth on this planet." He listed, each one running off his tongue in a slick manner. "Take your pick...they're all about you."

His eyes focused on Spencer for a moment too long, Spencer's heart loud enough to echo around the room, to his own ears, to Jordan's. He took another step forward, his right hand hovering before his thumb swiped over Spencer's cheek, running over the grooves of a fresh cut scanning over. Spencer turned his head to the other side, shaking Jordan's hand off, his touch only made the burn intensify.

"Things could've gone smoother back there." Jordan told the other, the cut being from the scuffle the two had while those hands were trying to take Spencer away yet again, take him to the room of which he would die. Spencer fought back, trying to escape before he ended up like the rest, but to no use. "I will give you credit for trying, you were the only one who attempted to fight back."

Spencer's bottom lip trembled as he thought of the others, faces he never got to see, only voices that helped him to sleep at night, or at day, he couldn't tell anymore, he was always so tired. He was also starving, during his time locked away in that neglected room, he was only given small amounts of food and water to keep him alive, he was weak and wasting, amazed he could still even breathe or talk.

The irritation in his cheek went down, yet on the underside of his skin was where the pain and affliction lurked. "What is wrong with you?" He spat, taking in another withered breath from a room so dark and forgotten. He forced himself to stare back into the other man's eyes to the best of ability considering.

Jordan seemed amused as his eyes gently floated away from Spencer's, focusing on one of his legs, his cold hand pressing down on his thigh a little as Spencer jumped at the feeling. "Why don't you elaborate on that?" Jordan asked, slowly removing his hand as Spencer let a sigh of relief pass through his nostrils.

His voice was still shaking, yet calmed down from his earlier yells. "You...You take innocent people away from their lives, chain them away, and then kill them." He told him, the words sounding disgusting to Jordan's ears for that was not what he did at all, not through his eyes, not in his mind. He stared down before making his way back to Spencer's side, those eyes of his hiding something within.

Jordan swallowed lightly, taking in a breath of the house, letting it out lightly, used to it after all this time. It felt like home... "Is that what I do?" Jordan rhetorically wondered, his tone condescending and as thin as ice, as shallow as his heart, but as delicate as the tips of his lengthy fingers. "I take innocent people and kill them?"

Spencer took a moment to build up his confidence. "Like that man Dan, or-or Dexter. And me." He accepted his own death, knowing that it was inevitable and this just happen to be the way. He wouldn't die of an accident of some sort, a disease or illness of the body inside or out, or natural causes of old age or what heredity had passed down to him. He would be one of the 100,000 people murdered annually.

Spencer accepted that.

Jordan's eyes grew a bit annoyed with Spencer's words and assured attitude, his pride only proving the sin he was. Jordan lifted a hand to Spencer's face again, his thumbs tracing over that new wound again before his nail dug into it, Spencer hissing in pain as Jordan slowly removed the scab is dried blood, ripping from his flesh with ease as Spencer squirmed.

He flicked it to the side, his face blank like a fresh canvass as he returned to the man laying before him. A thick drop of blood ran down Spencer's cheek, the only thing warm he felt, his face showing pain as the air ignited his cut. "Innocent people?" Jordan narrowed down again, Spencer understanding his mistake, trying to calm himself down as he needed to speak.

"Okay..." He panted, trying to calm his overwhelmed mind. "Okay, maybe...," He took another breath, in the verge of turning berserk, "...maybe I'm not so innocent..." He admitted, all of his faults coming to his mind at once. "...but I can change, people change..." His voice trailed off with a whimper. "...I can change..."

Jordan was quiet for a moment, letting Spencer suffer in the silence between them, the room just filled by Spencer's soft sobs. "Yes, indeed. People change." Jordan agreed, Spencer sensing some hope for him, yet uncomfort still lingered as Jordan now placed his hands on Spencer's arm, one holding down the forearm as the other slipped underneath the upper arm.

"People."

Spencer was not a person.

He was but a sin roaming the earth.

A quick motion, Jordan lifted his hand up, bringing Spencer's upper arm with it, first heard was a crack muffled by bones, then a scream to migrate around the building before returning to their room. "Ah! God! Ah! Aah! Aah!" Spencer cried in agony, his eyes melting into tears that hurt to cry out, his voice louder, higher, and frailer.

"No! Oh God! No! Aah! Aah!" He shouted, feeling Jordan's rough hands let go of his dead arm, it just lain limp next to him, he couldn't feel anything except for the protruding bone removed from its joint. He looked down at it, it was already starting to bruise, a purple tinge around the snapped area as well as where Jordan had placed his hands.

Spencer looked away, weeping hopelessly as his left arm stung like a million bees. "Ow...I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." He sobbed, unable to remove the tears that choked him. "I'm sorry...it hurts..."

He heard Jordan sigh out a short sigh. "That's why it's not good to be someone like Dan or Dexter or you." Spencer felt his stomach churn, taking deep breaths to help the pain. "You solely talk about yourself, your words know how to get around, soon people know you, know of you. People." He leaned a bit closer to Spencer, Spencer could feel his hot breath glide against his skin.

"And then the so few like me know about you. Learn about you." Spencer squinted his eyes shut, his arm throbbing and pulsating. "Learn what's wrong with you, and learn how to take care of it." He leaned back a few inches, allowing Spencer to turn his head back to the other, his eyes opening against his will.

"The few like you?" Spencer asked, his voice barely a decibel.

Jordan quietly cleared his throat, he, too, breathing in the dust. "I'm not human, Spencer." He told him bluntly as if it were the most obvious of trust. "I do not feel, I don't breathe, I don't live like humans do." That was what he taught himself, how he learned to be. It was only, but a placebo in his broken mind, but it helped him continue living once thinking he wasn't.

"I can feel the difference more than see it." He told him, his fingers sliding across the side of the wheel, his feet leading him as his tracing finger followed as he walked around the man as he spoke to him. "And I know you can, too." He had been right about that, not only by his presence, but just his far away voice, Spencer could tell Jordan wasn't meant to be a hero.

Spencer ceased his crying momentarily to speak. "No, no...no, you...you have it wrong." Soencer told him, trying to simply talk with them man, a bit of the reason was to understand him, yet the main part was just to spare Spencer of his own selfish life. "You're not different...from any human, you're a person like the rest of us." Jordan stopped at the other side of Spencer, freezing completely as he waited for Spencer to go on.

The blond swallowed. "You don't need to do this." He convinced, his big, blue eyes begging and imploring. "You don't need to kill me...or anyone else..." Jordan stared at Spencer straight in his bloodshot eyes before staring down at the younger man's other arm.

"You misunderstand me." Jordan whispered lowly, taking a step closer to Spencer. "I'm not human. Neither are you." Their eyes met again. "We may be one of the same, but all you see is what you think you are. Not what you are. What I am." Jordan wasn't speaking only of Spencer, he was mentioning his own personal pain, it hurt just as much as Spencer's revealed flesh to the air.

"I'm a sin." He admitted, his eyes strong as they held in tears. "Just like the rest of you."

He broke Spencer's right arm.

His back arched off of the wheel slightly, his screams louder as pain now radiated from both sides of his body, his arm just left to lay there, useless. "Aah! God! Ow! Ow! Aah!" He cried, unable to keep his agony on the inside, tears overflowing and running across his temples. Jordan let go like before, this time a bit harsher as he threw his arm back, the sensitivity running all around Spencer's system.

"Fuck you!" He yelled, eyes still closed, spit flying from his mouth and landing on his chin. "Fuck you...fuck you!" He shouted, knowing his legs were next, left then right, and lastly his neck before his body was brutally beaten.

Jordan smiled devilishly as he gazed down at Spencer. "Just like that, huh?" He asked, amused with Spencer's show. "Just like that, the charade is up, and you turn on me?" His blue eyes took in the sight of the power he had over someone, to think that he felt weak all of those years before...

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Spencer cried, absolutely terrified for not his life, but of his death.

Jordan bent his head down, his lips centimeters away from Spencer's ear, it shook along with his head and shoulders as he sobbed. "You turn on me because of a little pain?"

++++++++++

"Pain..." Jordan repeated, removing a freshly burned cigarette from his mouth, blowing out that puff of smoke out of his system and into Seamus'. He cocked hisjaw to the side, remembering what happened next as Seamus kept daring himself to listen on. "I...I asked what life was without pain..."

Seamus looked up from his trembling lap, staring at Jordan dead on, an epiphany opening up in his mind once hearing those words. Those ame words Dr. Lawson spoke the other night, Seamus giving an answer that seemed to be the one Jordan wanted. Their minds were alike, two people being such dreaded opposites, but sharing an almost identical mind.

"The same as death without mystery."

Jordan stared back at the detective, amazed himself.

Silence basked over the two.

+++++++++

He lain there, unable to cry anymore, the pain being too great and big for him to handle, his eyes dried, stiff, and tired, everything of him hurt. Both of his arms had been snapped, the bruising getting worse as time ticked by, he couldn't feel anything anymore. His legs, too, had been broken, Jordan holding the leg and snapping each at the knee.

Bones and blood were what he could see and feel, Jordan bludgeoning his poor, feeble body a good bit, his skin blistering, bloody, scarred, open, and in some areas gone. His screaming had died down until his vocal chords were stressed and scratched, it hurt to swallow the pain, but swallow he must. He could barely open his eyes due to the marks and cuts on his face, all he could see was that taunting face of Jordan staring down at him from above.

"Please..." Spencer whispered, it simply hurt to talk. "Please give...give me a chance..." He begged, his last dying breaths were just asking for his life. "...I just need a chance to change..." The dust was collecting in his system. "...please, please..."

Jordan eyes flashed an ounce of sympathy before the darkness of his soul overlapped them again. "A chance?" He asked, watching Spencer's eyes fade in and out of life altogether. "Spencer, I've given you more than one." Spencer felt what little hope he had left die with a small crush between two fingers. "Why do you think I've been talking to you? To prolong your death?"

Spencer teared up at that, knowing he was to die oh so soon.

Jordan sighed. "In a way, I suppose I am, but I've given you chance after chance to live." Spencer took his time to blink, more of that sympathy fighting through in Jordan's eyes before only evil you could see in them. "Everytime you've suffered a broken bone or a bloodied body, it's a consequence. It shows me that you simply are a sin that I shouldn't put faith into."

Spencer closed his eyes.

"And I shouldn't have."

He placed his hands on either side of Spencer's head, twisting it quickly to the side, sighing with pleasure at the sound of multiple cracks.

Then quiet.

+++++++++++

Seamus didn't interrogate more as he simply stood up from his metal chair, reaching for the cool handle of the exit and leaving as quickly as he took a breath. He made his way to the offices of his coworkers he knew and didn't, his legs trembling as he marched to his office, shutting the door, and taking deep breaths after sitting down.

The visions played before his eyes as if he had seen Spencer dying and dead for himself. The broken bones under torn skin, cries and pleads silenced by the greater bad, a life stolen in the cruelest of ways, with having your insides exposes to the outside world as your soul would starts to drift away. Your body contorted, your blood becoming your skin, pain being all you feel until the very end.

The snapping of bones still echoed in Seamus' ears.

He covered them, crying the same tears as Spencer, unsure of why exactly, but it was something that he just needed to do. In a way, Spencer's death resembled Seamus' life down to a T, perhaps having that illusion prove true is what made him cry, it scared him to think of how bad his life was, how bad it would get, and how lonely the road appeared to get there.

Seamus was Spencer, lain vulnerable and weak against life itself, he couldn't control anything, being in control wasn't a settling feeling. His bones were broken one by one by sticks and stones, the main events in his life, to crack it beyond repair. Losing Ashley, falling away from Stefani, becoming apathetic with his job, ignoring and avoiding Eddie, mistreating Liz. Sticks and stones. And the words...the words that said would never hurt...

...they hurt...

They skinned his body, bruised it, watched it bleed, they cut it, scarred it, scratched it again until the blood was a crimson shade. Words from Eddie that wanted to him admit a false truth about Ashley. Words from Ashley he needed to hear again, but wouldn't. Words from Stefani that were only silhouettes of what she wanted them to mean. Words from Liz that tricked him into thinking that the pain wasn't there. Words from Jordan that made him find the bitter ugliness of himself.

Words from himself.

He didn't need words from himself.

He had a bathroom mirror and a set of shattered eyes.

He wiped at his nose and eyes, trying to remain somewhat stable, refusing to let Jordan win again. Seamus knew he was strong, somewhere, deep down, he had buried it away for a time of need, and need was all he had been feeling ever since January fourth.

It was February first.

He felt his heart grow hollower.

He lifted his head to breath just as a rapid knocking was heard at the door, followed by a person popping in as it opened. Eddie looked at Seamus with frantic, yet concerned eyes, seeing the tear stains his face carried, and knowing what he'd say would cause more.

"Have you been checking your phone?" Eddie asked, his accent seeming thicker than usual as he entered the office they shared, closing the door quickly. Seamus knew his voice would be too weak to answer with words, so instead, he shook his head, possibilities being thrown back and forth in his mind as he wondered what was causing Eddie's worried state.

"Stefani's school called, you weren't answering, so they called me as an emergency contact along with Liz." Eddie explained, Seamus' full attention was granted just by the name Stefani.

"What's going on, is she okay?" He wondered, his stomach doing flips as he feared he might have lost her, too, tears reentering his eyes.

"She's okay as far as I know, she broke her arm on the jungle gym at recess, fell from the monkey bars." Seamus' face read anxiety along with more misery to break his eyes. "She's at the same hospital your mother's at-"

It didn't take long for Seamus to get to his car, his eyes panicking ad they scanned left to right across his windshield, his foot pressing on that gas pedal, knuckles as white as the snow.

~~~~~~~~~

He wiped away sweat on his forehead, taking step after step into the hospital up to Stefani's room, it was just a broken arm, but after the story he had heard moments before, his nerves were at an all time high. Calming down wasn't so easy to do, if only, it just made his heart pump faster. His hands free clammy, those same hands, those arms he just wanted to hold Stefani and never let the little girl go.

It felt harder to breathe as he stepped down the white and light blue tiled hallway, his shoulders tense as her room was coming up on his left. The left...then the right...then the legs...body...neck... He held in a cringe as he pictured Spencer's helpless body just whispering and begging for a second chance, his last moments were seen with eyes shut, the final twist of his neck.

Pride wasn't a good reason to kill.

Seamus still found Spencer as an innocent human being.

Jordan was still a killer.

His heart nearly stopped as he met the room he had been searching for, told to him by the woman at the front desk. A silver plated number just like the one next to his mother's room, she was only a few stories below him, withering away in her hospital bed, looking as if she wouldn't even make it to the next day.

Seamus bit his lip as he pushed such a thought away, entering Stefani's room that was already open. He sighed to himself, hospitals still being an uncomfortable place, but he relaxed a little inside when seeing Stefani's big, brown eyes. "Daddy." She called to him as he met her bedside, Liz standing nearby, Seamus relieved that at least someone was here with her.

"Pumpkin, hey..." He mumbled to her, sitting on the edge of her hospital bed as she leaned forward for a hug with one arm. Her left arm was stuck in a redundant manner, a white cast encasing it as a dark blue sling was strung around her arm. She appeared tired, an expected side effect from her pain killers at such a young age.

"Hey, how are you feeling, Stef?" He asked, his eyes turning soft as he studied his daughter. She sat back in her bed, pulling her light blue blanket back to her waist, her long, brown hair pulled back as her eyes held creases alike his own. She yawned lightly before answering her father.

"I'm okay...just sleepy..." She responded, rubbing at her eye with her free hand. "I fell off the monkey bars at school and landed right on my arm..." She repeated the story from her point of view, her somewhat sedated manner weighing down on her.

He cooed at her, scooting a bit closer. "Aw, that's what I heard. I'm sorry, sweetie." He said to her before giving her forehead a kiss, grateful for another day he could be with her. "Why don't you just lay back, try to sleep a little? You seem pretty tired." He giggled with his words causing a smile to spread itself across Stefani's small face.

He kissed her forehead again before standing up from her bed, sighing lightly before noticing Liz, his mind recollecting the night before. She seemed tense and awkward, herself trying to avoid the elephant in the room, but find it the hardest thing to do. His eyes caught a glimpse of her lips, those lips he accidentally kissed the evening prior, how the felt like Ashley's, but weren't exact.

His shoulders slumped, guilt attaching itself to Seamus like a ball and chain as well as the world on his shoulders.

He slowly made his way to his sister in law, his eyes looking at her from head to toe before taking a seat next to her, stealing a quick glance at Stefani before focusing on what needed to be addressed. He let out a silent breath, Liz bouncing her leg up and down, her thigh trembling.

Habits.

"Surprised you came." He told her, his eyes falling to the floor, after the night before, he wasn't expecting to see her face for days to come.

She huffed. "Why?" She rhetorically asked, Seamus could feel her eyes on him as he decided to meet them. "Did you think I would avoid you because I'm an adult?" She asked with a smidge of sarcasm, not all entirely too friendly, but Seamus could see a hidden smirk in her...lips...

He shook his head, looking down. "Liz, I...I'm sorry about last night." He apologized, he could still feel her eyes staring at him. "I don't have a single excuse...I messed with you, I confused you, I startled you...I'm married to your sister, for God's sake." He let out a cold breath, his heart, now, bleeding too slow.

He closed his eyes, pursing his lips. "I'm sorry..."

He wasn't expecting much from her after that, a kiss is a kiss, either accidental or with purpose, it meant something. It was up to Liz on how she would take that something and what that something meant to her. He jumped slightly when he felt her small hand on his back, feeling cumbersome since the last time they had gotten so close, things didn't end too well.

"Sea...I get it, it's...it's fine." She told him, his eyes surprised, yet thankful. "She's been gone for...so long..." Even Liz couldn't say her name. "You haven't felt that love or desire in forever...you just needed that connection again, I understand, I've been through that." She brought up her struggling divorce, six years later,she still suffered.

"You know I will always love you, Sea." She told him, patting his back lightly before her hand removed itself. "But in all honesty..." She paused, sighing. "...you should've kissed Eddie."

He let out a laugh at that.

He heard her laugh with him, Stefani moving slightly to find a more comfortable position to sleep, a small smile on her face to hear the both of them laugh again. He shook his head, smiling a real smile, it never feeling so good. He looked up at Liz, still seeing bits and pieces of Ash mixed in with her looks, personality, and build, but this wasn't the woman he married.

Where was the woman he married...?

"We're okay, Seamus." She told him, smiling lightly before drawing her attention back to her half asleep niece. He smiled for a mone for two longer before it faded completely, that thought running through his mind of where Ashley had gone, where that love had gone and if he would ever find it again.

That pain began to build up again, his happiness ending short, his bones beginning to break again by the events of reality.

Sticks and stones.


	15. Mistype

Brown eyes faded to brown eyes, that's all Seamus could remember, there was only this moment and that, the time between was lost in the forgotten of his mind. One moment, he stared into the eyes of his young daughter, how beautiful she was, how brave, yet how hurt. Behind her eyes revealed a swarm of pain that she kept as a secret to all, but time to time she felt it bleed against her skin, wanting that release.

Her broken arm resembled that, that pain needing to get out, it being trapped for so long in such a small coffin. With time it grew, it outgrew her body, it getting stronger the whole while, it needing to feed on something, anything. She seemed to be the perfect meal. That pain began to eat away at her, leaving herself feeling empty inside and with a broken arm to start with.

Behind those brown eyes...

Within a lapse of seconds he found himself gazing into another, ones that, too, help pain, yet weren't the same. They were the eyes of his best friend, it took him a while to recognize them, they seemed different for some reason. Seamus looked a bit harder, sadly, that had been the most he had paid attention to his friend since it all, and a heartbreaking discovery met his eyes, the reason they seemed foreign.

Eddie owned a crack.

It was single and small, forming from the pupil and etching its way across the iris like a lightening bolt. It was tiny for size, but not for power, that's how Seamus began. With just a crack. It was much time before another showed, and then another, it was like finding gray hairs, except you weren't getting older, just weaker. Cracks kept breaking through to the surface, Seamus' own pain consuming him, taking just a bit more of him as events in his life kept tearing him apart.

Sticks and stones.

The loss of his father to that tragic day, that depression that always clung to his mother's shoulders, no matter how many pills she took to hide it away. That was only the beginning. The abduction of his wife leading to an out of control spiral downwards. Himself losing who he was anymore, a stranger a silhouette, the shadow of his own ghost. Stefani becoming less and less dependent on his father, their roles seemingly switched, she was taking care of her father more than he was.

How low he had sunken with his job, he wasn't even doing it anymore, others finding him as dead weight to the team, one less reliable person. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was asked to step down, he, too, knew that he was only abusing his job anymore, he had no real drive to continue with it once that horror he faced as an officer came home to him.

Became him.

Seamus owned a new crack everytime he opened his eyes.

His friendship with Eddie became unknown anymore, what it was, if it was still there, it was a painful thing to talk about. He didn't feel important in Eddie's life anymore, only because that's what Seamus had done to his partner, pushed him away for so long until he became irrelevant. It destroyed Seamus to know that, destroying only because he had already been so weak for so long.

Yet...Eddie was strong...one of the strongest people Seamus knew...

...Seamus was the cause of his crack...and mostly like the cause of many more to fill his eyes with pain...

Eddie owned a crack.

"Is everything okay with Stefani, Sea?" He heard Eddie's Latin accent ask, the sound bringing him out of his haze and back to a reality he wondered was even real. He took in a breath, his lungs burning, was he even breathing before? Did he need to breathe? He turned back to Eddie, still concentrating on that crack in his right eye, but before speaking, he took a moment for himself.

What was Eddie doing here? He should be working, aren't I the last of his concerns anymore? But...where's Stefani? She was just right there in her hospital bed, Liz beside her, I was talking to both of them. Where was I? One minute I'm at the hospital, and now...now I'm at work...I left my own daughter at a hospital to interrogate a man who could have easily put her there...

How's Stefani?

I don't know.

"She's doing alright, better than I would've." He answered, letting his inner guilt tie his organs into knots as he familiarized himself with where he was. Work, you're at work, you should know, shouldn't you? "You were right with what you said before, she's really brave." His eyes calmed himself when telling him what they saw, he was working, he was at work. There was his desk he sat at, his computer, his files of the Mathewson case, that picture of his wife, himself, and his daughter...

...a dead body, a shell, and a whisper keeping to herself...

He was at work.

Eddie lightly smiled to himself, pleased that their conversation so far hadn't turned hateful at the drop of a hat. "I'm glad to hear that." He commented, scooting his chair comfortably closer to Seamus, feeling that old vibe Seamus gave of being a good guy. "Is she staying overnight?" Eddie asked, taking the conversation slow, not knowing what would or wouldn't upset the other.

Seamus shook his head, finding himself biting at the nail of his thumb again. "There's no need, it's simply a broke arm. They gave her pain killers she'll need to take for a few days, but nothing more. The doctor said she'll be discharged within a few hours, she'll be home before I will." Why aren't you at home?, asked that voice, that oh so proverbial voice mocking him in the corners of his mind.

You should be at home, already there for when your daughter comes home to see you. You, the father she misses day in and day out. But you're not home, you act as if no place feels like home. If so, why keep dragging yourself back to that same place every night, returning to it every night? Is that not home to you? Apparently not. Work is more like home, you go there instead of where your daughter wants you, instead of where she needs you.

You went to work instead of home just to stare into a brown pair of eyes you barely know anymore.

Then into a blue you crave.

"Do...Do you want me to tell Moss to let you have the rest of the day off to see her?" Eddie suggested, his feet inching himself closer to Seamus in his wheeled chair. Eddie knew how important Stefani was to him, he had been careful and caring towards her throughout her seven years. She meant the world anymore, the world just being what he had left. He no longer had a heart due to it being stolen, he no longer had a strong mind, it being affected during his childhood. He no longer owned the inability to cry for he knew that's all he would do on his mother's death bed.

He only had the world, and at that, it was just the weight piling onto his shoulders.

Stefani meant so much to him, but Eddie knew what Seamus' answer would be.

Seamus shook his head, rubbing at his tired eyes. "I can't afford to do that, Eddie." He told him, running his hands through his hair, it felt longer than he remembered, yet again, what did he remember anymore? "I love Stefani with all my heart, and I'm pleased to know she's okay...but I need to get this case out of my way before I can relax."

Eddie sighed at the other's stubbornness, understanding he was a determined mind, but determined enough to stay away from his family to do a job that was already done? Eddie opened his mouth to speak, but decided to not, knowing he'd just spark another fight between the two. Their friendship was agonizing anymore, all they did was argue and ignore the other, and in the end, one of them always drank himself to sleep.

To his own surprise, and to Seamus', most of the time it was Eddie.

He hated seeing who his friend had become, but felt guilty when his attempts to help were only thrown to the side. He felt as if it were his fault Seamus was wasting away, he couldn't help him, therefore he fell apart from the pain. To think back to how great Seamus used to be, loving towards his wife, playful with his daughter, skilled in his field, he actually used to open up to people.

From then. To now.

Seamus drank to numb his pain.

Eddie drank to forget his.

He let out another breath, studying Seamus' appearance, recognizing the man, but he still didn't look like the man he had befriended oh so long ago. "You know all of this work isn't good for you." He noted, Seamus glancing up at that. Eddie was afraid to look into those eyes, expecting to see that cold stare that warned him he was opening a can of worms.

Instead, those eyes seemed compliant, soft, and sad, deep down on the inside, Seamus agreed with his friend. He knew it was only hurting him further, it was nearly masochistic to listen in on what rolled off of Jordan's tongue. "You need to take a break every once in a while, I know you don't handle stress very well." There had been barely enough evidence of that in the past, but as of now, Eddie's words were true.

Seamus' eyes were tired, sleep he wanted, but couldn't do for more than a night without waking up for various reasons, staying awake for various reasons. His hair was growing itself out, getting too long even for his own liking, Eddie sighing as he saw specks of gray beginning to grow in. His back was curved against his black, leather chair, his finger kept running over the ring on his left hand, his voice seemed unfamiliar to another's ears, it being coated in his pain.

Eddie was getting there with that crack in his eye.

Seamus was silent for a moment, his head resting against his hand, his breaths slow, his system weak as if he were the one dying. Dead or alive. "How could you possibly know that when I don't even know about me anymore?" Seamus asked, his voice not mean, but frankly, frustrated at himself. He was officially just a viewer of his own life, he was no longer in control and knew he didn't have the power to take it back.

Eddie shook his head, hearing Seamus' words, and needing to help pull him out of that deep depth he had a tendency to fall into. "I know that's not true, Seamus." He paused. "...so do you..." Seamus met those brown eyes again, trying to find a deeper message within them. "You're just a little lost right now, that's understandable with any type of pain."

Eddie swallowed. "That...That's why I wanted you to talk to someone..." Seamus looked away, the pieces pulling together to help solve a mystery in his own life and not of the seven lost ones due to a puzzle that reeked of smoke.. "If...If I couldn't help you...I wanted someone else to at least try..." His voice sounded sorry as if he didn't want Seamus to take that note he left the wrong way, perhaps feeling as if he stepped out of line with suggesting that he needed help.

Seamus eased at that. "I...I did...see the therapist you requested." Eddie seemed surprised at that, eyebrows lifting and mouth forcing itself down to hide a small smile of hope. "...I was a bit against going...but I...I found myself driving there..." He chuckled lightly to himself, Eddie not believing his ears. Was he...getting better...? "There wasn't much to the meeting...I just told him why I thought I was there...what was going on in my life...and the pain..."

Seamus nibbled on his bottom lip. "We talked about me...my parents...Stefani, Liz, you...my job..." Each one built up to the unavoidable, Eddie knew it'd scar his own heart as well as Seamus' to hear that six letter name again. "...he made me talk about Ashley..." Eddie saw tear form in Seamus' eyes before his lids covered them.

"...Did he mention anything that...might be going on?" Eddie asked, holding back the words of disease, depression, or mental illness. He thought that may have been a reason for Seamus' downfall aside the obvious, yet he didn't want to let Seamus know he was thinking like that. Although Eddie always saw the glass half full, he still had doubts and uncertainties sprinkled here and there just like anyone else.

Seamus blew a breath out from his nose, shaking his head again. "...not yet...I think he might save that for another time..."

That caught Eddie's attention like a fish on a hook. "'Another time...?'" He wondered, looking back up at his partner. "...do you think you might go back...?" Eddie asked, holding his breath, wanting what was best for his friend, but his wanting wouldn't control what should happen versus what will happen.

Seamus pondered that, the question leaving the man stumped. He was against apprising a stranger about the darkest bits of his soul and life, but now he was starting to see some light to it. It was easier to confide in someone you didn't know more than someone you did, there was no pressure when words were unveiled to the air. You were safe and secure with someone who knew what they were doing, not stuck with someone who thought they knew. He finally felt...comfortable...

It was sad to think he relied on a practical stranger more than an old friend, but it was helping him. He was talking, that was a sign for the better.

"I might..." Seamus told the other, a bit of his heart beginning to repair itself with the reassurance of help. "...I might..." He repeated, not knowing what else to say. He itched at the back of his neck, eyes floating away from that second damaged pair to an object on his newly cluttered desk. That picture. Ashley's smile, Stefani's eyes, his own face he didn't recognize.

That picture now had new meaning. It wasn't just there to mock his every movement, to question his worth anymore, to antagonize the ruins of his life until the ashes of burnt buildings couldn't remain. Of burnt eyes, of burnt lungs, of a burnt heart. Buildings. Seamus would go back for them, he'd get the help he needed for them. For the wife he never got a second chance with, for the daughter that deserved the perfect childhood, and for the man he lost in that bathroom mirror when he lost his smiling face.

For them.

He'd do it for them.

Eddie sighed with relief, feeling his eyes become watery at such good news. "That's great, Sea." Eddie commented, hiding his tears to face Seamus directly. "I...I can't begin to explain...how great that is to know..." Seamus tilted his head to see his friend hold in his emotions, the effect he had on people... "I'm happy about this decision, it's a really big favor for me...thank you."

There was a silent moment that passed between the two, an odd sense of humbleness hovering over them, a bridge being restored between them to help them become less of strangers to each other. That feeling of rejoice... Eddie stood up from his chair, pushing it back to his desk as he walked up to Seamus' side.

Eddie met the other with a hug, something they hadn't shared in...God knows how long... Seamus was a bit startled by it, he and his friend had not had such a connection in so long, it felt strange to him. He placed his arms around Eddie as Eddie had done with same, holding him close and finding the interaction warming to his bitter heart.

It was as if he were becoming human again, the simplest touch of someone else bringing back some life in him. He held Eddie a bit tighter as if everything were dependent on it, he closed his eyes to take in all he could get before this moment would end, and life would return to a burning steam to all those who breathed in. Such contact made him regret pushing people away, regret ignoring his crave of comfort, regret leading his life down an abyss of no escape.

He missed the feeling of human contact, how others could make you feel, and right now it was better. But this contact made him miss the person he had made the most with. Ashley. The effect she had, how she made Seamus feel. When he held her from the night into the morning or just on lazy afternoons. When he kissed her light lips when they wouldn't see each other for some time,or being a hopeless romantic towards her. When he'd hold her hand to remind himself there was someone out there to hold his in return, when he'd hug her when returning from work to show that he was okay, when he'd kiss and touch every inch of her body and told her she was beautiful.

That contact...

He held in his tears again.

Eddie let go, allowing that cold air to take away the warmth he supplied to Seamus, and some of his own. Eddie looked down at Seamus, knowing that that man he had met forever ago was still in there behind those dusky blue eyes. Yet he'd still need to pray for that man to return again, back to the family, friends, and life he left behind so suddenly.

Between then and now.

Eddie needed to pray.

With a stifled sigh, Eddie nodded his head towards the other, allowing him some time to himself as he walked out the door. Those brown eyes were still imprinted into Seamus' mind, himself feeling secure with a few bonds made with Eddie, but guilt still threatened to tear them apart as he remembered that crack. That small, overlooked crack in his eye that needed more treatment than Seamus.

I have them, you have them...Liz...Eddie...Stefani...

That picture was still imprinted in his mind.

That voice rang like bells in his ears.

Seamus let out a breath of his own, staring down at the mess his desk possessed, it was as cramped as his mind, his thoughts scattered and askew, he couldn't bare to deal with the pain, but he mustn't let a second go to waste. For the last time he didn't act...he lost his wife...he lost that contact... He sniffed sharply as he straightened himself in his seat, needing to fix his broken mind and crooked thinking pattern.

He looked through his papers, the same text saying the same thing with a picture of the same man clipped to the top right corner. James Wilson, Dexter Manning, Kevin McFarlane. Seeing them again and again may have been repetitive to some, but to Seamus, every time he saw their faces, a new guilt would reside in his heart. His heart...was he...living...?

He knew about all of them, ordinary people stolen from life and swallowed whole by the devil. Living the lives they wanted, the lives they got by with, or the lives they hated. Feeling on top of the world, simply fine, or wanting to do better. People with feelings, people who made memories, saw experiences, people who have their own view of life and the world, that view will never be again.

People who have touched or hurt other's lives, and did both without intention with Jordan's life. All of them were special to him, not their lives per say, but their deaths, their souls fading from their bodies. Their deaths had values, and deep down, so did their sins. Pride, lust, envy. There was a connection somewhere other than a biblical past, a connection covered in dust and blinded to the eye, a connection Seamus needed to discover before his time with this case was up.

He piled the papers on top of one another and placed them to the side, trying to sort out every bit of information he had. His eyes caught ahold of his notepad, words scribbled down in black ink that was smudged here and there, perhaps value was in there. He lifted the notepad, his eyes dancing over the words in his handwriting, all information he knew like the back of his hand.

He flipped to the next page, sighing in defeat as what he had written just repeated what his mind already knew, his head aching as he tried to find something new, but to no avail. He turned a second page and then a third, most of his notes were on Jordan's behavior and attitude, his antics, habits, addictions, strengths, and weaknesses. A puzzle with pieces missing all around, and Seamus' couldn't work with what has been found.

He opened up to another page, it not owning much on it, just names written down in the middle of the page, names Seamus knew, but as of a person, he did not. The names of the men Jordan grew up with, the ones he was a scorn hatred towards, the ones that had beaten him down to the deepest parts of the ocean until Jordan couldn't swim, and he let the waters guide him to live a life of death.

Seamus wanted to meet them.

He placed the notepad next to his computer, leaving that page open for his eyes to see and fingers to type. He pulled his keyboard closer to him, opening a search engine with a light click of the mouse. His fingers tapped the keys a few at a time, spelling out the name A-N-T-H-O-N-Y C-R-O-S-S in the search bar before awaiting results.

He didn't get the results he wanted, the name Anthony Cross being a common name among men, but none were the man Seamus was searching for. He found dating profiles, twitter, facebook, and instagram accounts, none of which were the man he was looking, either too old, too young, or some that didn't even live in the country.

Doctors, surgeons, accountants, authors, athletes, DJ's, lawyers, actors, all under the same name, all who had made it in life. Based on the description of the man from Jordan, Seamus was looking for the one who didn't make it in life. He scrolled to the bottom of the fifth page, beginning to give up on his search when he found a link that caught his attention.

Anthony-Cross-Missing-Persons- Report-2010

Intrigued, he checked out the site, only to find the man he had been searching for was missing.

A picture of Anthony appeared on the screen to the side, the man owning dark hair and handsome features, an attractive amount of scruff starting to grow, his jawline defined, his brown eyes dark and devious, and his half smile showing, yet hiding his inner personality. The personality of floating through life without a care for anyone, including himself.

Anthony. Apathy.

...sloth...?

Seamus read the text to the left of the photo, alike Ashley's, it just read the blatant obvious, not the important information needed for someone to actually give a damn. Name: Anthony Robert Cross, Age: 19, Hair: Brown, Eyes: Brown, Weight: 130 lbs, Height: 5"8. Last Seen: December 10th, 2010 and a number at the bottom if you had any information of the whereabouts.

Seamus was left dumbfounded.

That date, as small as it may have been, mixed in other tidbits to cover it up, was the beginning to that connection Seamus yearned for. December. Anthony was last seen in December...just like all the others... Seamus felt fully alert as he minimized Anthony's report, returning to the search engine and typing in the name Aron Long. The same results showed up as Seamus expected them to with all, accounts of all sorts of all websites.

Until he found the link he dreaded.

He clicked on it, a picture of Aron appearing on the screen as well as a short description and the last time anyone had seen the man since December of 2010. That can't be of coincide..., Seamus thought to himself, saving Aron's file for later and typing Nicholas Campbell into the search bar. Same results.

The same results.

Greed and gluttony.

December, 2010.

S-T-E-V-E-N J-O-H-N-S-O-N

Last Seen: December 17th, 2010.

Envy.

M-A-X-W-E-L-L G-O-N-Z-A-L-E-S

Last Seen: December 28th, 2010.

Pride.

Seamus wrote down everything his eyes read, his mind not believing it, but believe he must. This wasn't the first time Jordan killed, this time it was nothing, but a mere reprise of the past, bringing back that darkness inside of him to repeat the process of death and deadly sins, the so called acts of God, and acts of the Devils. Seamus took a few breaths to ease his lightheadedness, his stomach churning to think that Jordan was the taker of fourteen lost lives...

...who were the other two...?

Seamus' teeth began to bite at his nail again, sectioning a piece off, his teeth breaking through it before turning his head to the side, ripping off the hangnail, leaving his thumb blunt. His mind reeled as he pondered his own question, his head pounding as he fought the pain just to think. He sighed to himself, closing his eyes and running a hand through his hair, needing to work past the obstacle of himself.

"Their names were Adam and Ellen...and I was their son...Jordan...who they hated..."

That voice of Jordan whispered in his ears, finally finding an answer in his disarranged mind. He sat forward in his chair again, pulling up his workplace database, knowing that all of these leads tied together in the end, knowing that it'd be a case given to his department, knowing he'd find an answer to all of this, if not, then the reason. The reason Jordan took the lives of seven strangers, five friends, and possibly his own parents.

As the database was loaded, Seamus took no hesitation to type in the names of Jordan's parents, Ellen and Adam Mathewson, his hand shaking as he clicked to view what the keywords had found. Only but a few outcomes appeared on his monitor, his instincts forcing him to choose the first one he saw. His eyes scanned the words, it containing nothing he needed, in fact nothing about the case as it was just for ticket given to Adam for speeding dating back to 1998.

He sighed, feeling his heart pace die down, suffering from the first cog in his machine, the first dead end of his search, a blank instead of a bullet in the gun aimed at his head. He clicked on the one below the first, again, it not leading him any further to an epiphany or finding. The third and fourth were of the same, a ticket for a parking violation given to Ellen in 2003, and a court order for running a red light in 2006 with a fine of a few hundred dollars.

Seamus felt defeated, his finding just turning out to be a fraud, Ellen and Adam were just normal people making regular mistakes, he was simply wasting his time with his search, time that could've gone into the learning of Kevin's death and wrapping the case up, certain pieces not filled, but at least he had tried. His shoulders started to slump again as he clicked on the fifth entry, and as he did, a revelation began to form in front of his wondering eyes.

January 2nd, 2005

Mathewson, Adam S. (37) was accused of abusing his old only son, Jayden (14), after a counselor at his high school noticed bruises around Jayden's wrists and neck.

Seamus stopped reading, focusing on on the name Jayden. Jayden? Jordan said he was an only child...perhaps it was just a mistype, someone slurred the name or spoke too fast when notes were being taken, the name heard wrong and thus on. Seamus kept reading.

Authorities stopped by the Mathewson residents to speak with Adam, his wife Ellen (36), and their son. Adam denied any abuse of the sort, claiming, "I would never touch a hair on his head", to which his wife agreed, her, too, not seeming to have it in her to hurt her child.

When asked where he got the bruises, Jayden they were from bullies at school, to which he wouldn't give the names or descriptions, only what they did or claimed to do.

That was a lie.

That was a lie, Seamus could sense it. The way he spoke of his parents, in utmost hatred and rage, with detestation being coated on his words, his voice even lesser than friendly, his hands shaking and mind seeming to relive scars in his eyes, how dark, yet afraid they appeared. Bullies didn't put those bruises there.

Adam did.

And Ellen allowed it.

His eyes looked over the rest of words, but his mind only registered what he already read, a possible truth of another kind of abuse haunting Jordan's life, a ghost attached to his back only because in the end, he put it there. Adam's hands hurt Jordan to the point where he wasn't sure if he was alive at all, but in the end, Jordan's hands were the one to end a reign of tyranny.

With a match and a flame.

Seamus clicked on the last article of his search, the end of the road ending with a bigger bang the the detective expected. The words reflected themselves in his thick framed glasses, the pictures being even more horrific than what any of the text could tell. His eyes watered lightly, he couldn't feel his heart pump anymore, the blood dried up by the guilt.

The horror.

The truth.

January 17th, 2010

A devastating event took place in the town of Littleton last evening as a neighborhood home becomes the home of a crime scene. Between the hours of eight and eleven last night, a fire was set ablaze at the house of 132 Melbourne Drive, the home of married couple Ellen and Adam Mathewson and their son, 'Jayden', flames growing up to twenty five feet. It took police and fire fighters many hours to finally tame the flames, the sky being nearly poisoned by the stench from inside and the smoke in the air. Yet, the fire is only the beginning of such an awful event.

After deeming the home safe to enter, what informants found was more than just the cause of the fire. The bodies of what made out to be seven people were found under the destruction, ashes, and dirt, the fire claimed to be arson, set only to attempt to cover up the murders taken place inside.

The seven bodies included the owners of the house, Adam and Ellen Mathewson, as well as five young men around the age of twenty. DNA had to be taken from dental records due to their faces being unrecognizable and bodies being severely burned, the five mysterious men were revealed to be the same men who had disappeared during the month of December.

Nineteen year olds Anthony Cross, Maxwell Gonzales, and eighteen year olds Steven Johnson, Nicholas Campbell, and Aron Long were discovered among the wreck, but with autopsy and further examination of the bodies, only Ellen Mathewson seemed to the one who died of the flames.

The six men were brutally murdered before the house was set on fire, their deaths taken place days, some weeks, before the final act was taken place. Max Gonzales was found tied to a wooden wheel, his bones broken and snapped, his body beaten and blistered before his neck was finally snapped. Nicholas Campbell was found bound to a chair, dead animals such as toads, snakes, and rats lay in the man's mouth, as well as a few burned rats that had tunnel their way through the man's stomach and other organs.

Anthony Cross' system carried large amounts of snake venom, bites being on his forearms, neck, and calves from what appear to be rattle snake bites. Aron Long's body was fried even before the flames began to eat everything in its path, it later being revealed that the man had been boiled alive in a vat of oil, his skin peeling and infected before the fire removed the rest. Steven Johnson was found frozen alive in the cellar of the home, insects and rodents burrowing into the flesh once the flames had thawed it, his skin rubber and weak, falling apart and off in some areas.

Adam was found strapped to a chair, at first that is. His limbs were found severed and lain in front and next to him on the ground, only but his torso and head remained in the chair, the flames melting his skin onto the back of his seat. Ellen had been the only one to truly die on that night, her wrists and ankles handcuffed to a chair of her own, her own death coming closer and closer as the flames ate her alive.

The killer and motive remained unknown until finally placed on their son 'Jayden' Mathewson, though he appeared to disappear on the world's radar. Authorities say that his act will remain a mystery as his body was most likely consumed by the flames and never retrieved, leaving this catastrophe to be a murder-suicide.

This is the second utmost tragedy the Mathewson family has faced since late November of 2005, when their fourteen year old son, Jordan, twin and brother of Jayden, had accidentally died due to an accident in their backyard-

Seamus couldn't breath, answers, answer he had wanted, and now he was given too many and too much to take in, air seemed gone, his lungs weak and withering inside of his aching chest. Jordan was dead...but he was alive...unless...Jordan was Jayden...or maybe...Jayden was Jordan...

Seamus held his pounding head in his hands, wincing in pain at how much it hurt, he was overwhelming himself, he could feel his heart beat in his eyes, hear it in his eyes, feel it in his throat. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, all he knew was that it hurt, hurt to think, hurt to breathe, hurt to even ease the misery within himself. His facts were thrown left and right, an abstract painting he didn't understand, tricks and lies being turned to confusing truths, and twists and turns leaving him a dizzy mess.

But in the end, he knew one thing.

Something Jordan lied about and did a damn good job of.

Jordan had a twin brother.

Now the question remained, who was dead and who was alive?

Jordan? Jayden?

...Seamus...?


	16. Eyes Of Broken Ice

Those words caused tears to enter the man's eyes, four simple words cracking the man even more, Seamus could hear each crackle once the room had grown silent. Jordan looked away, his heart pounding against his chest, a pain he couldn't bare, a pain as agonizing as breathing, he didn't need to before, so why was he now?

Jordan closed his eyes, the lids unable to stop a single tear from breaking through, it burning like acid as it fell down his pale skin, appearing to turn him even paler. He sniffled lightly, Seamus' words haunting him, taunting him, reminding him of his pain he tried hard to forget, feeling his stomach churn, his head feeling lighter than usual, his heart feeling weak.

His hand reached slowly to grab that pack of cigarettes, Seamus quickly taking them away, done with the games they had been playing of cutting corners and cold hearted sympathy. Jordan looked back to Seamus with bloodshot eyes due to the strain of holding his emotions in, only a portion was shown falling from his eyes. Seamus' eyes were as terrifying as his words to Jordan, and it only hurt him a second time as Seamus repeated them.

"You had a brother."

Jordan kept his mouth shut, talk is what he did until he became the subject, his body mainly still, except for his shaking shoulders and trembling breaths that shook his throat. "You had a twin brother...you told me you were an only child." Seamus pointed out, his voice dry and rough, startling to the both of them to hear, Seamus especially since he didn't know who he was anymore. A ghost, a shell, a killer in a way.

Only that bathroom mirror would tell.

"I asked you before if you had any siblings...you said no." Seamus said again, aggressiveness building up within his system, his blood flow nearly stopping with how much he had packed away inside. "If I'm not mistaken...that was an answer that prolonged the questions that needed to be asked, not the other way around." What happened to asking questions that only prolonged the real answers...? "But you're not a hypocrite...you're finding your own flaws and calling them out in me."

Seamus cocked his head to the side, his sharp eyes locked on Jordan like a target. "You withheld an important piece of information for what? A chance of getting away free from this? To push back my investigation, so you'd be set free and seen as innocent?" Seamus pushed, Jordan's jaw trembling when wanting to speak, words of defense being scarce, even the ones like Jordan need some security and comfort every now and again.

He sighed unevenly, shivering almost. "I may be a monster, but I still have feelings and needs, too, buried somewhere in my frozen core." He retorted, his head not lifting from his gaze at the floor covered in ash. "...Only another monster like you can hurt me enough to make me feel them again." He closed his eyes again, wanting and needing to be strong, but wanting and needing to cry it all away.

He sniffed sharply. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want to, there's a thing called sensitivity, and I'm only calling it out in you because you have it, too, detective." Bravery or something of the sorr forced Jordan to stare into Seamus' eyes, the murderer now being afraid of the officer of the law. "The urges to not speak, to keep to yourself, to hate every word that leaves your mouth when you talk about you.

"It's like me talking to a detective." Jordan snidely smiled. "Or you speaking to a therapist." His expression grew nastier, leaving Seamus disgusted with the man he sat in front of. "It hurts when the spotlight's on you...it blinds..." Jordan sucked in a chilly breath, sitting back in his seat, it creaking as it adjusted with his weight. "I didn't tell you because I wanted it to slip through the cracks."

Seamus felt himself scowl. "Like the ones in your eyes?" He asked, his voice serious and strange.

Jordan was quiet once hearing Seamus' words, unsure if he had heard them right. "Y...You see them, too..." His voice frail as he spoke no more after, nothing, but light sniffles cam from the man as he awaited indescribable pain.

Seamus sat back in his chair, feeling himself ride over Jordan, the feeling of power being intoxicating, understanding why Jordan craved it as so. For once since it all, Seamus felt somewhat whole. He cleared his throat quietly, swallowing thereafter to soothe the burn. "Who was Jayden?" He questioned, knowing half of the question, the other part remaining an enigma unless Jordan decided to speak.

Jordan clenched his hands into fists, restraining tears from clouding his vision in any way possible. His voice was low as he spoke, decibels below decibels. "The beginning of the end of me." He answered, his head still aimed down, the texture of ash matching the texture of his eyes, scattered and broken in a disarray of disgust.

"The end of you?" Seamus pondered, needing the other to explain further.

Jordan stared dead on into the detective's blue eyes, finding them to be a mess of ash as well. "You know what it feels like." His voice grew stern and cold, Jordan becoming a stranger to the other man, but he wasn't entirely so close to him. "Waking up every morning alone and scared, lucky enough to even remember your own name." His fingers crossed over one another, craving for that cigarette to calm his nerves.

"Life is nothing, but a motion you go through, the pain becomes routine, but still, you fall victim to it." Jordan was becoming irritable, his fist shaking, his tongue licking his lips again and again, needing to taste that tobacco, that nicotine, that heaven that came along with his internal hell. "You barely understand what life is until you convince yourself that nothing is real anymore, nothing feels real because you can't feel your heart beating.

"You're dead inside, and slowly it bleeds to the outside." The bags under the eyes, the shakiness in the hands, the yawns, the headaches, the tears, the cracks in orbs of all colors. Blue. His were blue. "And then you fade..." Jordan's voice trailed off, his eyes wandering after it. "The end of you."

That shot Seamus in the heart, how much he could relate to it, how he wasn't only, how the other who felt his pain was a cold blooded killer with a swollen heart, and darkness reigning over his shoulders. That's all he truly did anymore, wake up each morning with a hole in his heart and watch how big it could grow as life pushed passed him. There was nothing, but a hollow in his chest, a husk, a pool of blood where his heart should lie. His heart was gone.

And his skin was already appearing translucent.

His sucked in a breath, changing the idea in his mind, and the pain to take its turn on Jordan. "In the article I found, it said that there was an accident in your backyard in November of 2005." Jordan's eyes turned scared again, his lightly tanned skin turned pale, sickly, ill. His fingers still clenched together, wanting that cigarette, the release of his stress leaving his body with that cloud of smoke. He closed his eyes again, but Seamus could still see his vulnerability.

Seamus nearly smiled. "It's not fun when the other knows everything about you, is it?" Seamus' voice was like the blade to a knife, it shining in the light in the most teasing of manners, such a terrifying sight as it drove right into your eyes. "Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide...nowhere to fade..." Seamus rested an arm on the table, his hand wrapping around the wrist of the upper hand.

"I know as much about you as you do of me, and that's a hell of a whole lot." Jordan felt nervous when feeling those terrorizing eyes on him, those eyes of a monster he nearly created with the help of Seamus' troubled past. "But I won't know the rest unless I become you, until I become you." He quoted the other man, Jordan's eyes reluctantly looking back up at Seamus.

"Possess me."

Seamus whispered, he could feel his own eyes turn darker than dark, understanding that Jordan already had. "What happened that day in 2005, Jordan? If I should even call you that..." He retorted, feeling more and more like Jordan as days flew by, feeling just as alone, just as misunderstood, just as guilty. He had done more than comprehended Jordan, he had become him, and that was the true tragedy.

Jordan bit at his trembling bottom lip, knowing if he were to tell the honest truth, the holes in his shallow lungs would leave him with no more breaths to take. He sniffled again. "Don't you want to start with who Jayden was...?" He asked with a shaky voice, bumps forming on his skin although the room was quiet warm, the temperature and walls absorbing that smell of cigarettes smoke.

Seamus shook his head. "I'm afraid the dead is more important the living." He muttered under his harsh breath, he turning his head to the side and hearing a small crack in his neck. He used to cringe at the sound, but now, it didn't bother him anymore. How people change...

Jordan stiffened in his seat, feeling determination flow in his veins, deciding to fight fire and fire, and in the end, water to douse the flames and leave the smoke hang in the air to choke and kill. Like he had done before...and he'd do it again... "Jayden was a better man than I," Jordan began, continuing on with the living rather than the deceased, "a better person than I, really..." He sighed, he could feel his organs turn to stone as he glared at Seamus' deathly eyes.

"Where I lacked a quality, he did more than just exceed and excel in it." His eyes dipped down again, wanting to drown themselves in years of held back tears. "He was the perfect son...and with me as his brother, he was the better son..." His voice was now drenched in sadness, it was a sound Jordan couldn't take for much longer. He had convinced himself that he no longer could feel emotions, but now, his cocoon of them was splitting like an open wound, and it burned to have to feel such unwanted passions.

Seamus sat back a little as he watched more than listened to Jordan slowly deteriorate. "He was a grade A student, had a good social status, everyone knew and adored him, my parents especially." His addiction increased, his tongue wanting to taste that nicotine, but all he tasted was the bitterness like salt as he spoke about himself.

"He went to church with them while I stayed home on Sundays. He was achieving accomplishment after accomplishment while I was struggling in everything. He was in that club and that association when I was having a hard time trying to find myself." He paused, his eyes stung as much as his frail heart. "Sure, I envied him...but...I...I didn't mean to kill him..." A tear fell from the corner of his left eye, his eyes glossy, and appearing...faultless...

"I killed an innocent..." He muttered, his eyes being nothing, but a collection of welling tears. "I killed my own brother..." Seamus dipped his head, feeling pity towards Jordan, and deep down, in himself. Jordan had killed his own brother due to a mere accident of not protecting him. Protecting was something that Ashley lacked as well, thus her being out in the world...somewhere...

...Seamus felt as if he had been the one to kill his wife...

Jordan's voice was beginning to choke itself up, trying to move onto what happened that afternoon in November over ten years ago. "We were exploring in our backyard, behind our house," Jordan swallowed, "there were acres of forest that we would venture in from time to time." The scenes played themselves in front of Jordan's eyes. He vaguely smiled, remembering the good times himself and Jayden shared.

He sighed deeply. "Those moments were the only times when I was with my brother and didn't feel belittled compared to him." He looked down at his fingers, studying every bluntly bitten nail. "He didn't sense my jealousy of him, and he didn't treat me differently because I wasn't as smart as him, or I wasn't as involved as him." As Jordan revealed more of the story, Seamus was starting to see how human the man truly was.

"Jayden was the only person who treated me like..." He paused, trying to find the right words to put it in. "Like...someone who deserved value..." That small light in his eyes faded, it wasn't much to begin with, but made his eyes dimmer than ever before. "He made me feel human when I felt like an alien to everyone else." And as the human side to him grew faint, it wasn't the alien in him that took over. It was the monster he never knew was there that took hold of the ropes.

Jordan held his pounding head, the combination of no sleep and hurtful memories began to close in on him fast. "He was...the world to me..." His voice lowered itself. "I destroyed my own world far before the flames got to it..." Before the rain of tears drowned everything else... He took an deep inhale, calming himself before moving the story along.

"We were in a new area of the woods we hadn't been before." Jordan explained, his voice turning less ominous and eerie to scared, hurt, and shattered. "It looked safe enough..." He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "We were climbing a giant oak tree we found, daring each other to go higher and higher, seeing who was brave enough to reach the top..." That taste for tobacco faded.

"Jayden was trying to move from one branch to the next...I...I thought it'd be funny to mess with him...just doing what a brother does best..." Seamus wouldn't know. "...I shook the tree a little, I just wanted to tease him..." His eyes reflected his inner pain. "...I didn't mean to make him fall...oh, we were so high up..." He couldn't take the agony anymore, everything from the inside was bleeding to the out like he had said, it leaving his body stained with misery.

Jordan began to cry.

It was hard to see him cry, for Seamus and for Jordan himself, too. The tears of the innocent were difficult to face, to thing of someone with no faults in life deal with pain of that kind. The tears of the guilty were a calamity to see fall, someone with a soul as black as the night expel their depression in a blue as light as the daytime sky. Then there were the tears of monsters who used to be men.

It was rare to see a monster cry, you fill yourself with hatred for them, yet there you are, at their feet, feeling pity and compassion. Monsters can't feel what humans can, but Jordan wasn't completely a monster, he was just lost in the stomach one, the true him still alive in the lion's den. And instead of enduring the pain while fully dying, Jordan was suffering from the agony before living again, it was hurting him to turn back into who he used to be.

Seamus knew.

Stefani understood.

Jordan raked his teeth over his bottom lip, ripping away the flesh trying to grow back. "I climbed down after he fell...I was so worried, I couldn't even understand what was happening..." Jordan sobbed lightly, rubbing at his nose and eyes often. "I got to the bottom of the tree...I...I saw Jayden..." Jordan was nearly crying tears of blood.

"...he landed on his neck..." Jordan murmured, his cries covering up his voice. "...he was barely breathing, he was barely living...there was so much blood..." His hands began to shake again, not of withdrawal from his cigarettes, but of the fear coursing through his body like a poison. "I...I picked him up and ran him back to our house..." He breathlessly whispered, his mind aching as he had to relive it all again.

"I couldn't breathe anymore than he could..." Jordan didn't need to breathe anymore. "I came back to my parents crying and covered in blood with Jayden in my arms...and...and I looked down at him and..." He shook his head, his eyes of broken ice melting into pools and puddles of tears on the tabletop.

"...I saw my brother take his last breath..."

Jordan was quiet after that, scarred eyes staring down, trying to recover from the near breakdown he suffered moments ago. Seamus couldn't bare to look at what he had done to Jordan, he had torn him to bits just to see what was hiding on the inside. What was on the inside was a withering heart in the dark, scared of the toll life had taken out on Jordan, so he no longer embraced it.

Jordan had seen his brother die. Blood, bones, and breathless lungs were what he remembered him as, not the fun, spirited, unique boy he used to be. That was a shame, Seamus considering himself lucky compared to the other. He didn't have to see his wife that way, beaten and still as her body began to decay, only in nightmares and everytime he closed his eyes, not in real life.

But he still owned that guilt deep down that somehow, he had been the one to kill his wife, like Jordan was the one to kill his twin brother.

"I killed my brother..." Jordan mumbled once he was able to talk again, his mouth still fighting a frown, but he could still miraculously speak. "...So yeah...maybe you can call me a killer...because they did...they did..." His voice wavered, his eyes turning mean as subjects changed once again. "My parents hated me...they said I was the Devil sent to ruin the world...

"...they didn't allow me to go to his funeral..." He bit his bottom lip, keeping his mouth closed with force to swallow back the sobs he refused to let out. "...the last thing I remember my brother as is a dead body bleeding in my arms..." Now, Jordan was bleeding in his own. "They didn't love me anymore, they barely did to begin with...they said I should've been the one who died..." Seamus closed his own eyes, keeping his tears from rolling down his face.

Jordan took and withdrew a few breaths, making sure he could still breathe. "...and I do them...they wanted their son back...so they...they called me Jayden..." Pieces were placing themselves together in Seamus' troublesome mind. "...they forced me to dress like Jayden, act like Jayden, become Jayden, tricking everyone into thinking Jordan died by that accident...and illuding my parents into thinking Jayden was still with them..."

Jordan was forced to be someone who he wasn't, only he himself truly knew who he was, to his parents he was a makeshift son, to his friends he was a punching bag, and to all others, he was that loveable boy Jayden, so perfect, so amazing. He had to leave his old identity behind, it becoming shadow, it still being his shadow to this day. He knew who he was...but that wasn't who he was...

"I had involve myself, I had to pick up my grades, especially history...Jayden loved history..." His words became clearer, but there was still trouble in seeing his eyes that way. "...Jayden was religious like my parents, so they...they forced me to go to church...to read the bible...and believe in the one they called God..." Jordan paused, his chest feeling air tight, he tried to breathe to ease himself.

"...but the only thing that caught my attention were those seven deadly sins..."

Another piece connected.

Seamus swallowed back the rock in his throat, only keeping it there for he didn't know what to say. "Why didn't you fight back?" He questioned, understanding how strong and defensive Jordan could be, why didn't he use those attributes when he needed them?

He looked down at his watch.

He closed his eyes.

His shoulders raised slightly as he opened his mouth, his eyebrows raising as he spoke. "I...I did..." He opened his light navy eyes, still staring at the time ticking on his watch. "...at first..." He blinked slowly, his irises and pupils lifting when the lids did to stare into Seamus'. "They had deceived themselves into thinking I was Jayden, that when I acted like myself, it was 'the devil trying to get back in again'."

Tears were drying around his eyes, almost gone entirely, but you could still hear them in his voice. The skin around his eyes was red and swollen, his bottom lip lightly bloodied, his eyes looking blind and dead as he stared blankly into the remains of Seamus' soul. It wasn't the devil trying to get in again, it was the human within him his parents wouldn't allow, and he had learned from that. He ignored his human qualities, living a life in the dark as a creature, losing himself in every pair of eyes he stole the life from.

To be human like them.

"And...they'd punish me for not being their perfect son..." Jordan finished, his voice slowly gaining back its power, but it still sounded so weak. Returning to a person wasn't so easy to do, it had hurt his bones before to transform into a beast, they'd be so fragile at being a person. So tried to stop the change, to stay the he was. He was better at being a ghost than was at being human.

"What would they do to you?"

That question hung in the air as Jordan cocked his jaw, the memories far too prominent for him to forget. They haunted him, shadows of his own unable to leave his life, he ignored them to best of his ability, but every now and again, he drank in the submission of them. "...They'd hit me." He started, not even needing to slide his eyes for the memories to play, the nightmares to mock him again.

"They'd lock me in a closet and turn out the light." He cringed, remembering how hard he pounded on that door, knuckles bloody, throat hoarse from screaming, eyes burning from the crying, his body shaking due to the fear he felt being alone in the dark. Now...he embraced it. "They'd put me down verbally...mentally...emotionally..." Jordan listed, raising a hand to his head, his fingers massaging his temple lightly as if he were soothing the pain left behind from them.

"They'd..." He stopped, staring straight ahead, through Seamus and into the two way mirror behind him at himself. He looked into his blue eyes from afar, seeing the flashback within them, being afraid to admit such a thing, the sights he saw, the sounds he heard, what he felt, how he felt. His breaths grew raspy and a bit quicker, shaking his head, refusing to go on, keeping his lips sealed. He tucked his head down, closing his eyes, but then, he had just made the memory worsen.

"What Jordan?" Seamus questioned, his voice curious and concerned for the man in front of him, he was a man after all. "What did they do to you?" He asked, Jordan shaking his head, both of the men terrified of each other. Seamus afraid to see Jordan so susceptible, Jordan afraid to look into Seamus' eyes once saying the unsaid.

Seamus leaned a bit closer onto the table towards Jordan, Jordan looking to the right, his eyes glued to the wall, one of his hands nervously wrapped around the armrest of the chair, the other placed on top, Jordan nearly cowering. "If you don't tell me now, you will never have a second chance to tell me. Me, someone who understands." Seamus reminded, himself agreeing to the facts between them.

Seamus had the ability to become Jordan. And Jordan understood Seamus seemingly more than his own self.

Jordan lifted his head up that, hearing Seamus' voice, it sounding so...calming...soothing... He rose his head up, his eyes level with Seamus', it was as if he were still staring into that mirror. Seamus was scared himself, his eyes cracked as well, yet he still wore that patch of darkness on his arm. "What did they do, Jordan?" Jordan sat himself up in his metal seat at that voice, that question, feeling somewhat comfortable with their icy stare.

"They'd..." Jordan murmured, afraid to let the darkness sin him see the light. "They'd...f-force me to...to watch them fuck..." Jordan took a breath in at that, his throat burning once saying those dreaded words aloud. Seamus was left speechless. "...They broke a rule of their religion to only have sexual relations to procreate..." Jordan shook his head again, disgusted with the thoughts that passed by his mind, his eyes. "Here they were...making their fourteen year old son watch them go at it every night..."

Jordan cringed at the sights still playing in front of his eyes, at the sounds still his ears heard, everything branded into his mind at a young age, it only getting worse with time. "And I had to watch...because if I had my eyes closed for one minute..." Seamus closed his eyes, unable to bare the pain the swarmed Jordan's life like a thousand silhouettes.

"He'd..." He raised his head towards the ceiling, tears beginning to slide down his face again as he let out a small breath. "...he'd rape me." Seamus opened his eyes out of shock, simply looking at Jordan, but having absolutely nothing to say. "He'd bind my wrists and choke me as he stole my innocence and raped me..." Bruises around his wrists and neck...

Jordan let a tear run down his cheek, it landing on the table softly like rain. "And she'd watch...and she'd like it..." Seamus nearly let loose the contents of his stomach, muffling a gag in the back of his throat. "The sins of lust and wrath...that's who Ellen and Adam Mathewson were..." He repeated his words from before. "And I was...nothing to them..."

The pain Jordan had been through was more than Seamus could swallow, perhaps more than his own. The taunts and pain he went through as his friends turned into foes, the stomach aching misery he suffered when seeing his brother die before him, the maltreatment from his parents as they abused him, as they mistreated him, as the neglected him, underappreciated him, scalded him, tortured him, raped him.

Seamus clenched onto his stomach tighter, himself only adding onto the pain.

"I wanted to disappear from the world..." Jordan muttered, his eyes falling away, Seamus losing eye contact long before Jordan had stopped staring. "The pain...I couldn't deal with the pain..."

Seamus lifted his head up, wiping away sweat from his forehead with his clammy palm, his body trembling all over, his foot nervously tapping against the floor. He pursed his lips, swallowing loudly, his eyes tired as he tried to avoid the stake in his heart. He opened his mouth to speak, to try and move past the distress, but couldn't get it out of his head,only able to speak about it with two simple words.

"I'm sorry."

He could feel Jordan's eyes burn holes into the top of his head, but he couldn't meet this eyes once realizing that they owned more cracks underneath, Jordan's skin was, too, cracked, it being a fragile as glass along with his heart, almost like a porcelain doll. A broken porcelain doll with eyes that watched you wherever you went.

"You're sorry?" Jordan asked, knowing he heard Seamus right, but unbelieving of the passionless, meaningless, repetitive words. "You're...sorry...?" He asked again, leaning closer to the cop across the table, Seamus hesitantly lofting his head to gaze into those broken orbs of all shades of blue. "I'm mere days away from getting sentenced to life in prison most likely with an indeed death of lethal injection...and you're sorry?"

Seamus couldn't bare the stare, closing his eyes and turning his head to the side. Jordan took a sharp breath in through his nostrils. "My brother died due to an accident and everyone hated me because of it, my parents abused me because I wasn't perfect to them," Jordan leaned closer to the blond, "I lost my virginity at the age of fourteen because my father deemed it necessary for me to learn from my mistakes, from the flaws I couldn't help."

Anger built up within the detective, sitting up in his chair, his eyes locked with the other pair, a pair he had grown bored with,but still they held so much mystery and secret that Seamus needed to solve. "And you're sorry." Jordan finished, their faces close as they stared, Seamus could taste Jordan's breath.

Seamus snarled. "Sorry is all I can be. You're watching me burn just like you did with them."

Seamus dropped the hint.

Jordan picked it up.

A smiled grew onto Jordan's face as he retreated to his chair, his eyes couldn't help, but glance down at that black watch of his again. "The house 'Jayden' caused?" He snickered lightly, itching at the back of his neck with a devilish smirk. "They had it coming to them...to burn with their acts of sin..." To think that Seamus was almost a victim...

Jordan licked the blood off of his lip, the saliva seeping into the cut, and burning as it coated it. "My parents went away on a two week vacation trip supported by the church...the only reason they left me behind was due to the fact that I hid...mainly out of fear..." Jordan began to explain, his voice quivering by the end of his explanation. Seamus wanted to smile at that, that pain in his words.

"Once they were gone, I hunted my prey one after one." Starting in December. "I lured them to our house and took their lives from them in our house, leaving the bodies to lay there until my parents came back." A glimmer flashed across Jordan's eyes when talking about the ones he had killed, proud of his work, that human in him dying again for the last time, that beast that lurked in his head took over the reigns.

Jordan's jaw stiffened. "I wanted them to see what kind of monster they had created before they were consumed by it." Their eyes froze on one another's yet again. "And they saw...I looked right into their eyes before the both of them died...and they saw...oh...they saw..." He had cut his father into pieces, grinning at the blood flow and screams he gave. He let his mother burn in the flames he created that tore down his childhood home, himself just walking away from the flames as if they were nothing.

Ended in January.

Jordan cleared his throat again, Seamus' head pounding out of control, the sensitivity was more than he could take, his brain feeling as if it were blistering. "I wanted to disappear and I did...and when I resurfaced, Jayden Mathewson was dead." He rested his back against his seat. "And although I'm still walking on this earth...so was Jordan Mathewson."

A creature of the unknown had taken over him, that dreaded, petrifying unknown. Everyone was frightened of it, Jordan finding it terrorizing, too. He was afraid of his own self, that fear, that weight pushed against his chest, therefore he didn't breath. He fell back into the envelope of who he was, and it felt satisfying to return.

"Five years later, the cycle continues..." Jordan wrapped up, glancing up at the ceiling tiles before aiming his eyes back down to the officer before him. "But even now...we are but playing the past."

That was the last thing Seamus' mind processes before he found himself trudging towards the building's exit, needing some air to either help, or hurt his crumbling mind. His feet smacked against the ground as he opened the door to the offices, thanking whatever there was as a God for working on the ground floor. He took a step outside and smacked his back against the building, breathing heavily into the air, his breaths coming out as white puffs.

He couldn't stand to be in that room anymore, feeling sympathy for Jordan for having to be stuck in it. The pressure and tension were beginning to tear Seamus in half, he wasn't one for stress, he knew that himself even when taking the case, the job in general. He was about to fall apart, before he was just losing pieces, but now too many were missing, he couldn't go on.

He should've just gone home, greet his daughter with open arms, repair that somewhat stable mends with Liz, include Eddie into his life again, ignore the pain caused by Jordan and just let things be. He was already drowning with enough pain in his life, but here he was, handling another's. He couldn't contain it, wanting to be somewhere far from here, wherever Ashley was, if Ashley was anywhere on this earth anymore.

He wanted that freedom, he wanted that release like the agony feeding on his organs, he needed to be freed for once instead left behind with cement blocks roped to his ankles. He opened his weary eyes, watching his breath fade before him, wishing that he could disappear as easily as that, if not him, than his pain. To float away like smoke in the air...

He felt his hand rummage through his overcoat pocket, he wasn't able to control himself or understand what he was grabbing for. He lifted his hand up swiftly once he had something in his grasp, his eyes registering what it was before his mind slowed, himself, the true him, looking down in confusion, horror, and disgust.

His hand held a fresh pack of cigarettes.

It was still in the cellophane, a green and black box of wonder. It wasn't the one he had taken away from Jordan, for that one only held three left, this one still contained all twenty. And it was in his pocket. His mind reeled back to days and nights before, trying to figure it how he had obtained the box, he wasn't a smoker, he didn't smoke. If so, then why did he have that box in his hand? Why did he own that urge to place a cigarette to his cracked, chapped lips?

Possess me...

His mind hurt to think, drawing his memory back to last night, that painful night of kissing Liz and drinking himself to sleep, it seemed so far away, but it had only been nearly fifteen hours ago. He thought harder, concentrating on that lapse between his third beer and waking up, curled on his bedroom floor. He closed his eyes, hoping it would help, and for the first time, it did.

A dull memory flew passed his mind, it was a few seconds, that being all he did remember, but it answered his question. After his third beer, he still hadn't fallen asleep, instead he blacked out, still being awake, but his mind doing its job and forgetting. He had stopped at the store just a few blocks down, and bought a pack of cigarettes, Jordan taking control over him when his shields were down and he was left defenseless.

He was becoming more like Jordan as every second ticked by on the man's watch, himself feeling gross with the body he owned, he wasn't sure who he was anymore, if anyone at all. His body felt numb for a moment, that box falling from his hand and onto the sidewalk with a light sound.

They fell like the tears of a monster.

They fell like ashes to the ground.


	17. I Fell

He sighed breathlessly, hands jittering as they held up his weight against that desk, arms shaking, head pounding. He dared not to stare into that window before him, his own eyes closed, head aimed away, he didn't need to see what was there, he could already sense it, feel it. Those other eyes staring at from from behind that glass, the eyes of a troubled soul.

His eyes, and the pairs of the ones he killed.

He could feel the cuts on them, reading them like braille, his fingertips getting sliced and the blood staining his hands. Those broken cracks and crevasses of Jordan's eyes were enough to scar anyone's mind, they were getting worse as days went by, that darkness within him growing stronger and weaker against himself, against the detective, those cracks fading before becoming more prominent.

It wasn't the darkness of him that would break his eyes, it was that last strip of innocence that would crawl in his system and fester. That pain, that purity that haunted him, the man he used to be, remembered, but couldn't return to for that him was nothing, but a ghost. He haunted him, possessed him at times, constantly reminded him, but to become him again would be both a miracle, and impossible.

The definition of pain can vary along with pain itself, from the size of a grain of salt, to your world closing in on you. Then there's beyond. Jordan felt that beyond. That beyond where the pain is so great, you take in more than you can contain. That beyond where you leave yourself behind and let a monster walk in your skin. That beyond where you can't cry anymore, where you're not sure what you should be afraid so you fear all, where you sit in front of a grave with your name carved on it and just wait to be buried.

Seamus' pain was life shattering, but Jordan's pain was hellbound. There was a hell whether or not you believed in a God or his nemesis, there was a hell where shadowy souls were born and forever remain in those fiery depths, there was a hell. Everyone is succumbed to that pain at least once in their life, perhaps twice, three, four, five. Some are until they drown, until that hell becomes their life, either it takes over them, or they take over it.

Jordan had done a little of both.

Seamus craned his neck up, hearing a slight pop as his eyes slowly opened to an awaiting nightmare, one he dared himself to see. He could feel more than see those eyes staring back into his, a crackled blue that had seen too much. What those eyes had been subjected to, what those lips have said, cursed, even tasted. What those ears listened to, heard, block themselves from, what those hands felt, covered up, the bruises, the blemishes, if that nose could recognize the smell of fear.

His past. His past, Seamus just couldn't shake it out, shake it off, shrug it off and away, it being worse than his own, his past was child's play compared to the reality of Jordan's. Seamus couldn't keep his mind on it for more than a moment without cringing, the words nasty and unpleasingly frightening. To think that those words of thunder and lightning were someone's life, and not just life, but childhood.

Seamus looked away again.

Holding his withering brother in his arms, watching in utter horror of the transition from dying to dead. How easily a life can be stolen and by who, by what. What blood looks like on the outside, what it was like to stare into lifeless eyes, to feel still lungs and a limp heart, brothers and sisters of pain and death. What it was like to not only see death, but feel death, to place his hand on the other's chest and never feeling a beat. To cry tears of glass onto those memories.

Holding onto nothing as the presence of his brother had passed, but he could still feel his weight in his shivering arms. No one paid mind to that, what a guilt that plagued Jordan's head, only the blame was in other's, he was the reason Jayden died, he was the reason, he. The rejection he attempted to accept from not only friends, but family, parents, his own parents beating him down with the fault, the fault what made him wish to stop living.

That blame turned into hatred from his parents, it just wearing away and leaving emptiness inside of Jordan's soul, just wanting something to fill in that loneliness. Nothing ever really did, there still a hole shot through his heart, and instead of the cure being helpful and warming, it burned like an infection and bled like an open wound.

Seamus rose his shoulders as he cringed.

They hit him. They slapped him. They scratched him, bruised him, weakened him until his vulnerability came as frequently as his iridescent tears. Their words crammed themselves down throat, swallowing each and every one, it hurting more than just listening to them. They neglected him, they ignored him, they mistreated him, they tore him inside to out, battered him with until those marks became his flesh, caused his deepest fears to be alive, even the ones he couldn't have known existed.

He was afraid of a lot of things due to them, things he hadn't before, but now he couldn't breathe when thinking of them, the fears closing in on his mind. The dark from when they'd lock him in it for hours. Heights as he couldn't climb again, fearful for what happened to his brother. He was afraid of people altogether, he experienced what they could cause, knowing that all were capable of such hurt.

He was afraid of his own parents.

One that liked to see him suffer.

One that abused the boy in more ways than one.

He'd bind my wrists and choke me...as he stole my innocence and raped me...

Seamus' stomach let out a moan as he took in a strong breath, needing to keep himself stable. He opened his eyes again, focusing on Jordan's face, it seeming concentrated as he simply stared straight ahead, right into those sleepless eyes of the detective. He had to go back in there, for it was his job, the job he wasn't doing, he had to go in there, more or less of his own personal intuition and yearn.

He fought himself as his foot stepped forward, a sharp pain stinging in his foot as he took a second step towards that door, he wasn't sure why he was even doing this to himself. He was slowly killing himself everytime he sat down in that chair, everytime he looked up into those snowflake eyes, everytime he spoke of the other, spoke of himself. He was slowly dying, wanting to savor every second, but wasting them like falling grains of sand as he applied his own pain.

He took another step, his foot heavy, his mind telling him to turn around, to go home, to leave the case behind and return to a somewhat manageable family waiting at him at home. Yes, home. The place you moved into when marrying your wife, the place where you raised your one and only daughter, the place that was diminished to nothing, but a broken building with time, but a place you keep coming back to.

Yes. Home.

He sighed to himself, now standing in front of that black door, hand hesitating to reach out for that handle, a low breath leaving his lungs as he rested his head against the door. He had never felt weaker in his life than he did at that moment, catching himself in the act of loving such a pain, fueling his misery as well as fighting it, a fiery, good feeling. His head hung and pounded, feeling as if he wanted to give up, to give in, but needing to continue.

He couldn't give up, give in.

He had a job to do.

The job he couldn't do.

For them.

For them...

He place his hand to the chilling doorknob, sighing and hissing at the feel, his mind unable to make itself up, pick itself up, himself wavering back and forth between heaven and hell, searching in one for the other in him. His hand trembled minorly, his wrist itching to turn with that handle, his mind preventing him, but it was only so strong to spare himself of the agony.

He twisted the handle, pushing the door open slowly thereafter, avoiding Jordan's stare that he could feel bathe him in a spotlight. He closed the door slowly, that heat in there still feeling below freezing, still smelling like smoke, the effect Jordan had on people, things. That soft click echoed in the dull room, Seamus' footsteps heard afterwards, his feet nearly dragging as he pushed himself to near that table, that scent, that man with mutilated eyes.

He placed a hand in his pocket and just as quickly took it out, an object at hand that he threw onto the table in front of the other, that box of cigarettes he vaguely remembered buying that drunken evening. Jordan's eyes fell to it, studying the unopened package, staring at it in awe and understanding. Our possessions posses us. Seamus pulled his chair out slightly, making enough room for him as he sat, a small creak heard from the chair, adjusting to Seamus' body weight.

Seamus licked at his dry, cracked lip, his teeth refraining from biting at it.

His lifted his head, pieces of his eyes falling out with the movement.

Jordan met such a martyrdom gaze.

The two just stared.

Jordan's eyes fell to the side after a few moments, his swollen eyes needing tine to repair. "I know." His low voice spoke to the officer, Seamus somewhat missing that rough tone and gravelly timbre. "How can you bare to look at me?" Those words sounded oh so familiar to the ears of the other. "I'm a killer." That word wasn't so pungent to say anymore. "I don't deserve anyone's ears to speak to."

No words filled the air for a moment after that. "I feel like your eyes, detective." The taller of the two spoke up, his words catching Seamus off guard and on a peak of curiosity. "Broken...scarred...bleeding continuously, hoping to die, but somehow, they keep blinking, I keep blinking." He closed his eyes slowly, reopening them slowly.

"Somehow, still able to function after the things I've seen, the things you've seen." A flash of them flew across Seamus' vision, hitting him hemorrhage in the head. "And I'd rather prefer to be your eyes than mine." His eyes kept drawing themselves closer and closer to that metallic table. "To mine, your eyes are innocent, despite what they've suffered." His eyes focused on Seamus' chest, a step closer to meeting those eyes again.

"In fact...I'd say they haven't suffered enough." His eyes followed up a trail of breadcrumbs, small details of Seamus, his neck, his defined chin, his lips, his pale complexion, to those small, fragmented eyes. Those small, fragmented eyes that had not seen what a torture chamber life could be. "But I guess it depends on your definitions of 'suffering' and 'pain'." His eyes fell away again, appearing more tired as sleep was withheld from him.

"How would you describe pain, detective?" Jordan asked, his voice wavering with that four letter word. "What is it like to you?"

Seamus bit his gum, grinding it in between his teeth as he thought, forcing himself to feel it as he could taste the words in the form of light blood. "It's...like a person itself." Seamus admitted, letting his mind ramble, his subconscious taking the back seat. "Not an entity, not a monster, not a shadow...a person." He stressed, seeing the silhouette of that person floating before his chipped eyes.

"That person doesn't bother you...they just let you know that they're there, that they exist." Just another face passing by in life, one you'd see anywhere in life, but wouldn't recognize, and otherwise wouldn't remember. "They don't speak to you, they don't acknowledge you, they just stare right through you..." He, too, stared right through himself in that mirror nearly every morning, he was a face he didn't recognize, he was his own pain, and along the lines, someone else's.

Seamus shook his head, his thoughts scattered. "And...it has such a plain face, it could be anyone in a crowd, it could be everyone in a crowd...but it's a person." He nearly hissed at the feel of his tongue running over his chapped lips. "People are pain." He drew, everyone he had ever met either he had caused pain to or they had caused some sort of hurt to him. And Jordan...Jordan was just pain itself.

Seamus sighed. "They bring pain, they cause pain, they suffer from pain. It's hell on earth, pain, people." Jordan brought his eyes back to the other, an understanding look in them, but a question forming just beyond them. What about us...? "And...I think the ones who are the monsters are the lucky ones." The other's eyebrows knitted. "They can't feel that pain. So, I'm not a monster, and neither are you."

Jordan's eyes turned sympathetic before growing into something that made Seamus feel inferior.

"We are pain." He paused. "It's people."

Jordan lightly shook his head, his lips flat, but Seamus could see the vague curled lips of a smile. "Innocent...so innocent..." His words were quiet, it seeming that Jordan only mouthed the words. "I see pain as...air..." His eyes wandered off again once speaking. "Everytime you take a breath, you take it in, that's why it's harder for some people." His hand itched to grab for a cigarette. Instead, he looked down at his watch. "But...it's mandatory to live, you need pain...to breath, to be able to stay alive."

He picked up that box of cigarettes, placing one between his lips, and igniting the end.

"It's more of a necessity, really. Pain." He drew in a large breath, eyes locked with Seamus' as he blew it out slowly, it looking like a soul seeping out from final remains. "There's enough for everybody, but...some just want more." He tapped the stick, ashes falling to add more onto the pile beneath their feet. "Either they want it for themselves or they inflict it onto others...and that breathing just piles onto it."

He took in a second large breath from that stick.

"You see, breathing is a reminder that you're still there...living something so cruel and mysterious, and you wonder why?" His other hand brushed back the hair beginning to fall into his face. "Why you? Why now?" He closed his eyes, licking his lips instead of taking in a breath of life. "The answers are unknown, and you're left breathing in that stale pain everyone shares."

He placed the cigarette between two lips, speaking nothing, letting Seamus take in the silence and the scene. He had been smoking for a while, Seamus could tell, able to take in that tar the first chance he got. It eased his pain, that pain he felt ever since his birth, that pain that had only gotten worse with time, and it never faded like most. His lungs were black, his eyes were blue, and his soul was a color somewhere in between and dark.

Jordan removed the dangling stick from his mouth, his lips making a small smacking sound as his pointer and middle pulled it out, his lips still craving more. "It's easier to die than to live..." Seamus silently agreed. "When that last breath leaves your body, that last bit of misery, everything feels...better..." His breaths alone were clouds of smoke harming the atmosphere, keeping that scent fresh in Seamus' nose.

"Breathing hurt for so long...and to be free of it...to actually be free..." His voice trailed off into the storm clouds forming above his head. "...it's easier to die than to live..." He repeated, emphasizing that fact. "All the lives I took, that I've taken...I mainly did them a favor." He ran his lips around the edge of his cigarette as one would run their finger around the edge of a glass. "They don't need to breathe anymore, that is bliss as I still ache everyday with how much, yet how little I feel...

"...my pain froze, my lungs, my breaths..." He drew one in from that nail in his coffin. "I don't breathe." He blew that breath out. "I can't, I took in too much, but I still feel it, I still own it...they don't need to feel anything anymore, I...I envy them..." He bit his lip, knowing he was a sin, but it hurt to own the qualities of another. "Monsters aren't just the lucky ones." Jordan commented, bringing up Seamus' words spoken prior.

"True sins are, too..." His eyes closed, not wanting them to open this time. "It's people...people are pain..."

Seamus dipped his head, adverting his nose away from that stench of the room, but it followed him everywhere he went. His mind raced for words to say, knowing what he would say would simply ache his hoarse gullet, words feeling like razor blades as they came up his throat and off of his tongue, leaving a slice down the center. All he spoke was gargled blood.

He pursed his stung lips. "I'll never understand it." Seamus whispered, those words reeling Jordan in. "They say...that talking about pain lessens it..." He though that at first, finding to be an oddly obliging matter in his favor, suffer the pain to feel the rejoice. Yet, there are two sides to every story. "We talk to pain itself to help pain itself..." He concluded, finding that pain was only helping pain, pain worsening pain, pain creating and causing pain.

"It's the irony that helps and hurts."

His thoughts went to Dr. Lawson, the cure to misery and mental illnesses. The one to talk to for guidance, for correction, for learning purposes and mistakes of all sorts. To talk to a man who may be in far worse of a situation than his patients, his pain tucked away under his suit as he searches through another's, able to solve other's issues, but when it came to his own, he'd drown.

Talk to pain to help pain.

Lawson was more focused on helping himself than the others.

Selfish.

Sin.

Jordan swallowed, taking in a bit of smoke down with his saliva. "I wouldn't know." He whispered, letting his cigarette wavering around in his hand. "Our talks, our sessions, all I've said..." He nearly frowned upon the thoughts echoing through his mind. "It's all just made the air emptier..." Seamus' eyes turned to the light on Jordan's cigarette, his eyes running circles around the ring of fire, around the ring he couldn't remove from his finger.

"I don't feel better with what I've done, nor what happened to me...I don't feel safe enough to sleep...I never did really...there's too much that keeps me awake anymore..." The bags under his eyes were darker than a moment earlier, his lips curling around the filter of that cigarette. "How do you sleep, detective?" His daring, blue eyes rose up to Seamus', looking as sly as a cat's.

He knew the answer. He knew the answer, but asked anyway, just needing to hear the pain in someone else. Seamus wasn't the only one to love such a pain. The detective noticed a small smile hiding behind that tired face, Jordan thrived on pain like a leech, taking it in in himself, in others. He was loving every minute of it, his treacherous mind games to confuse and belittle.

People never change.

"I drink." Seamus blandly answered with a bit of force, ashamed of his truth, but apathetic towards what Jordan would say or think about it anymore. "I down three beers and secretly pray to wake up the next morning, fearing that I won't." His voice grew stiffer with every word to pour out of his mouth, the last being peppered in a poison of hatred.

Jordan licked at his lips, that smoke of his cigarette blending in with his eyes. He cocked his head to the side, eyes still stuck on the other's. "For them?" He questioned, his tone amused, eyebrows raising in a condescending type of way. "Your friend, your sister in law, your daughter." He paused, drawing in another breath from that stick. "If it wasn't for them, would you still pray to wake up?"

Seamus said nothing.

"You deny that their weighing you down...but you still breathe because of them...to take in that pain because they're keeping you alive, they're keeping you dead." His hand was quick to come to the table, Seamus expecting to hear a pound, but only hear the hissing of the cigarette as it died against the metal table. Jordan's hand gingerly let go, leaving another grave to lay on that tabletop, another burnt memory that could never be wiped clean of that place.

"That's selfless, but selfish-"

"What would you prefer me to do?" Seamus cut him off, his words sharper and stronger than himself, whatever confidence he had sealed away was being wasted on the most lowlife of people. "Let you consume me like a cancer and kill them?" He asked. "Rid myself of them to cure an incurable pain?" Seamus' heart sizzled as Jordan's didn't even beat. "I may be like you, but to become you would be a sin.

"I may be broken, but you're downright unfixable." Seamus shook his head in revolt. "Taking lives to help yourself, blaming your ways on your brother, your parents, on them!" Hid fist pounded the table, Jordan flinching slightly, his eyes traveling down to see the fist of the detective on top of the case file, that folder of the dead that once were the living.

"You're a manipulative son of a bitch." Seamus whispered, tone soft with a rough edge. "And will be the only one to watch you die."

Jordan swallowed, his eyes falling down to the tabletop below, catching note of the shine, the glimmer, and the dark patch growing bit by bit when every puff of smoke Jordan he in. "Do you feel better?" Jordan asked, his tongue feeling dry. "Has your rage passed for the time being, detective?" He turned his head to the other side. "I don't feel so helpless to it now, I've gotten used to it, experience is part of life, I suppose."

His eyes turned cold again, Seamus feeling the effect in his paper thin skin. "And...isn't it human nature?" He wondered, biting at his lower lip. "To place blame? Everyone succumbs to it, whether it being the blamer or the blamed." He held a piece of his lip in between his teeth. "I'm not saying that I believe I am the way I am due to them, I think there was something in me, always there, that decided to...eat away at me as they did their doing.

"That stress was triggered...it worsened with time..." His eyes glazed over, that shadow of a past casting over his eyes again. "Here I am now...guilty with fourteen accounts of murder and a mind stained with unbearable memories..." He sighed. "With blame." His eyes closed, a second before, Seamus swearing the other owned tears at his own words.

Jordan cleared his throat quietly. "I only blame because I've been surrounded by blame, there's always someone to blame, to admit fault in." He ran his tongue across the back of his front teeth. "I was at fault of killing my brother, I was at fault, for losing my parents' love...it was my fault I was raped...it was a punishment, a consequence."

Seamus cringed at how he had said it so carelessly.

"I was at blame for seven deaths back then, and another seven now." He finished, his voice igniting a fire in Seamus' system, but was soothing to the ears. Jordan's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed a puddle of saliva that coated his throat. "You're only fighting with me, detective." Jordan noticed, studying that that pale face of the officer in front of him. "Fighting blame with blame, pain with pain, fire with fire."

Seamus took that to his weakening heart, feeling a few of the veins detach.

Jordan sniffed lightly, the smell of the room feeling like home to him, a place he truly never had. He itched at the back of his neck, feeling a scar underneath of the tip, a scar only his father could have put there, there was pain he held, and pain he didn't know he did. "You have your own pain and blame, detective." Jordan whispered, their stare was between black, button eyes. "Why don't you share?

"I did."

Seamus stiffened in his seat, sealing his already zippered lips. His head pounded, himself feeling frail, but he wouldn't give way into the hands of Jordan, he wouldn't dare touch a finger, knuckle, or hair. His look turned down upon the man in front of him, finding him to be the fool, bringing down others for the satisfaction in himself. His bit his lip as his face scowl, feeling a scornful loathe wash over himself.

Jordan lightly sighed. "That's a little unfair, detective." He commented on the silence following his last said words. "I'm more or less of a stranger to you, but still, you only confide in someone you don't know because of their rank. A therapist over a killer." Seamus glared at the other man with suspicion and curiosity, Jordan rubbing him the wrong way. "What...you think I can't here you beyond these walls?"

Jordan raised his eyebrows innocently, his face wearing a toothless smile. "What's the difference between a doctor and I?" He questioned, resting his head against his hand, elbow inches away from that sooty mess to the right of him. Jordan studied Seamus' secretive eyes. "Just because I've taken lives...that's what it is. Because of my past." He muttered, smiling snidely towards the other.

"You said people are pain, you talk to pain to rid yourself of pain." He reminded the other, using his own words against him. "That being said...wouldn't you need to talk to me...? With everything I've seen..." Seamus only pursed his lips, keeping not only words, buy even slight whimpers of whines of defeat to leave his voice, his mouth, from behind that ominous persona he tried to keep up.

Jordan let his eyes fall away from Seamus' for now, his lips pouting a little as he thought of what to say. "How's your daughter?" He questioned, returning to the topic they once spoke of, of family. "I...I heard about her arm, shouldn't you be at home tending to her?" His words hung in the air, Seamus refusing to claim them. He already owned too much guilt.

"But you aren't.

"I see it in your eyes, you don't even know why." He commented, those hurt eyes of his beginning to break Seamus' just a bit more. "What is it that draws you here?" He paused, awaiting an unreceived answer. "The determination of an officer, the fear of a coward, the wandering of a lost soul, the refusal to go to a place you no longer call home?"

Their eyes clicked like a lock and key, Jordan catching Seamus red handed, but deciding in leaving matters be for now. "Perhaps I'm being too harsh on you, maybe this time, you're not the problem." He always was before. Jordan swallowed. "What is it of the place?" He asked instead, still steaming Seamus' nerves. "Is it warmer than your empty bed? Is it just something to do that prevents you from breaking down further? Is it easier to focus on the pain of others than your own miserable life?"

Seamus' knuckles were paler than his skin, his hand shaking, his hand lightly tapping against the table. "Or do you enjoy the pain?" Jordan turned to the other side of things, that second half of a story no one listens to. His own side. "The pain to come back here and stare at me in the cold, dead eyes and empathize?" He paused, not even a breath could be heard in the quiet, Jordan simply gazing into Seamus' eyes like a night sky of stars.

"It's not my eyes...is it?" He transitioned, Seamus' eyes turning angry before hiding away, knowing that they revealed too much, he wasn't open to being hurt yet again. So soon. "Eyes of brown...it's Edwin's...that's why you keep coming back..." The brunet connected, proud of himself that he had nearly solved the other, that puzzle not being too much if a hard game, but was a battle on fair.

"It hurts you to see him, but you thrive on that pain..." Seamus wanted to cover his ears, to block the truth out of what kind of monster he was, what kind of creature, what kind of thing. Wanted to. Didn't. "It is air and it is people..." Jordan didn't need to read Seamus' eyes to gather the rest of the pieces of Seamus' broken mind.

Jordan's teeth ground together. "You lost something from him...trust, loyalty, just that confusing bond of friendship..." He listed, shaking his head, thinking all to be that lost something. "You try to repair it, but you're afraid that if you do, you won't know how to continue." Seamus' teeth pierced his bottom lip. "You've dealt with the pain for so long, you're used to it. That eerie, unhealthy connection you two have, that's what you're used to.

"You're not one for change, detective." Jordan noted, Seamus reeling his eyes back to the others, feeling a passionate bit of vexation sending tingle throughout his body. "You can't go back to the way things were, and you can't move forward." He stopped. "Because you can't forgive your blame." Seamus sighed at that. "It's impossible to forgive oneself, and you love that just as much as you hate it."

"Stop it." Seamus whispered under his breath, Jordan hearing his desperate plea to stop.

He smiled.

He looked down at his watch.

"A guilty pleasure." He chuckled lightly in the back of his throat. "That's not the only." He tilted his neck to the side, hearing a small crack and sighing at the release of tension. "There's another pair of brown eyes you hurt yourself to stare into, you hurt yourself, but on that pain, you feed like a wolf." Jordan licked his lips. "Those...tempting eyes of Elizabeth, the reason you don't leave the dangerous confides of work."

He tilted his neck to the other side. "You know Stefani is in good hands with her, but wouldn't you prefer your daughter to be in yours?" Jordan pushed, testing the waters before diving straight in. The water was warm, it being a feeling he hadn't felt since that fire...it was so warm... "If not Stefani...," Jordan paused, "...what about Liz...?"

Seamus' top lip rose slightly, trembling with his frustration. "I said...stop it..." Seamus begged, feeling his strings snapping after being plucked just once.

"Everything of her is just so...familiar, familiar to you, you know the label, but that denial in the back of your head appears like a phantom, and forces you to think otherwise." Seamus' strength was crumbling, fearing that he'd believe in Jordan's words, afraid that he already was. "You deny that...irresistible familiar...what is it really that grabs you in her...?

"Her eyes, such a lovely mahogany?" He asked, a picture of Liz appearing in the detective's head at every description. Her face...the memories...that kiss... "Her breath, sweet, heavenly, so warm...? Her hair, a dark auburn you can't stop staring at...?"

It wasn't Liz who Seamus was picturing of anymore.

"Stop. It." Seamus said again, trying to block Jordan from getting inside of his head, but the man had already tunneled in, burrowing and festering in the cells of his brain.

"It makes you miss the connections before," Jordan continued, "the interactions, the touches." His voice grew more solemn. "Before when that ring meant more to you. I see the way you look down upon it, I know." Jordan wore a proud smile as Seamus was left with a charade to hold up in front of his frightful face.

"With such a past gone...it's left you lonely, first missing her face, then her voice, then her presence..." Seamus' head ached, that unspoken name of Ashley causing an unbearable pounding. "Soon, you miss the memories, the times, good, bad, romantic, fearful." Seamus pressed his fingers against his temples, rubbing them lightly. "Then you miss the love. That deep, discriminating, beautifully ugly passion, that love. The connection. The interaction. The touches."

Seamus' voice was dry. "Don't...you dare..."

Jordan only smiled. "You yearn for her, that other meaningless ring, but you can't find it." Seamus felt himself tear up. "So you give up, give in."

"I won't." Spoke that shivery voice.

"You move on, but not entirely as she still lingers around as someone else." He kept quiet for a minute. "Elizabeth." He whispered her name. "The similarities, the familiar...it brings back the things you miss...your yearns...your desires..and you can't look into those brown eyes, at that darkly auburn hair, smell or taste that sweet breath without seeing her."

"Please...stop..."

Jordan's voice became huskier. "And you miss her...and you need her...and you want her..." He paused, that devilish smile haunting his face, taunting Seamus' crooked mind. Jordan took a sharp breath through his mouth. "The sex..."

Seamus slammed his fists down onto the table, a clamoring echo heard throughout the room as he pushed his chair out from underneath of him, eyes raging and bloodshot, teeth bared, muscles tense and shaking as he stood on the other side of the table, eyes locked on Jordan's. "Shut the fuck up, you cocksucking psychopath!" He yelled, tears leaking from his blue eyes. His train of thought had crashed momentarily, leaving that devil inside of him to commit rash decisions.

He felt his hand grab at something behind him, it encasing itself around something before pulling it out hastily, his eyes finding it to be his gun. His hand shook as he held it, finger ready on the trigger, the barrel looking down onto Jordan, a bullet moments away from entering his body, killing him instantly. "I swear to God, if you say one more fucking word!" He aimed the gun closer, gesturing his hand with the weapon in its grasp.

Jordan didn't even appear scared, staring at that gun in bravery, yet apathy. There is no fear of death when die you cannot... Jordan shook his head. "You couldn't do it if you wanted to, detective." He paused, meeting Seamus' eyes instead of the eye of that gun. "Your eyes are yet far too innocent."

Seamus cocked the gun, his finger pressing slightly harder on that finer, with anymore weight, it'd send a bullet flying into Jordan's skull, to his frontal lobe. "I will blow your fucking brains out." Seamus threatened in a weak voice, tears clouding his vision and burning his face as they rolled down. With all the man had made Seamus feel, a bullet to the head it what he deserved.

He took back what he though earlier.

Everyone deserves to die.

Jordan seemed pleased. "Then do it." He told him, awaiting his demise. "Show that camera who you really are." He nodded to it before meeting Seamus' gaze again, his eyes closing thereafter. "Show them all. The writing's already on the wall, detective." He let out what could have been his last breath. "You'll only be proving your darkness with killing me.

"Fire with fire."

Seamus sobbed lightly, his hand shaking profusely, listening well to Jordan's words. He closed his eyes, looking away from Jordan his face red, beaten, and tired as he reluctantly took the gun away from Jordan's head, disarming it before throwing it onto the table with a clang and a weep of defeat. He took his seat again, his head falling into his hands, the fear of his own self tantalizing his soul, who was he anymore?

His legs felt weak, his tears were ones he had already cried before, the same old story repeated within his life. He was afraid of himself, what he was capable of, what he would do if there were no voice in his head to tell him different. It should've been his own head he aimed the gun at, to free himself off his curse, his monster, his life. He shouldn't have let it down, he should've pulled that trigger, freeing himself of breathing, of pain, letting Jordan's eyes become more stained with the view.

He took shallow and deep breaths, his lungs battered and bruised, his heart suffering the same. He could feel every blood vessel burning in his cheeks, everything rising to the surface at once, everything of him in absolute pain. He had never wanted to die as much as he wanted to at that moment, to be free from the pain, the people, his own shell of his body, his self.

Moments upon moments passed, the silence overlapping Seamus' cries as they no longer came to be. His eyes were red and swollen, adverted away at the floor, refusing to look back at the presence in front of him,his eyes, he could feel, trail up and down his fragile body. He was done with the pain that was slowly shutting down his system, so he didn't talk. He couldn't help his pain by talking about it and to it.

He hid it away to let it rot.

"You know..." He heard Jordan's voice say, Seamus didn't even react to the noise. "...I admire you, detective. When hearing the truth or know ot yourself, you only just push it away because you can't deal with it." Seamus closed his eyes. "You don't cover it up with something else, you just hide it's, somewhat accepting of the fact that it's there."

He heard Jordan take a breath. "You don't lie about it like I did..." His voice trailed off, Seamus wishing for it to never return. "W...When they asked me...where I got those bruises the afternoon after my father had raped me...I lied..." He admitted, Seamus' eyes closed to the world around him, but his ears being forced to listen. "I didn't push it away until I could say it aloud, I wasn't honest with it like you've been with your truths.

"I lied."

It was a while before Jordan went on.

He swallowed loudly. "I only showed my bruises because I wanted someone to see and set me free... I was...afraid....to say something, I thought showing what they did would prove more effective." He let out a breathless sigh, a quiet one, but Seamus' ears still picked it up. "But...finally being asked that question... 'Did your father hurt you'...it was more real than I first thought..." Seamus opened his eyes at that, still awake in that nightmare.

"And I lied the moment I should've been taken from them..." Jordan shook his head. "In my dull mind, I thought if I went along with my parents' charade, they'd accept me a bit more, pleased that I chose to stay with them..." Jordan now owned tears of his own. "I lied, saying the bruises were of the usual reasons...the bullies at school...gym class...

"...I fell..."

He leaned his head back, taking in a sour breath. "My moment of freedom passed with myself in the dark...and the pain didn't get better..." His eyes stared off into oblivion. "My father kept to it, my mother, too, at points...because I lied. Like them." He shook his head again in disgust. "I lied for them because of the fear in my heart...and they abused me in such a way...

"...for them..."

Seamus sighed, his mind still pulsating.

For them.

"...this is the first time I've...ever really told the truth..." Jordan confessed, his voice nervous and weak.

Seamus kept to his silence for, but a few more minutes. "...It's...the first time I've heard mine..." Liz would keep the talk easy, he wouldn't talk about it to Stef, and Eddie would simply sugar coat it. Jordan handed him the hellish reality upfront.

Jordan bowed his head, connecting with Seamus' pain. "It hurts to know what kind of freak you are, doesn't it?" He asked, needing to hear an answer to know that he wasn't truly alone.

Seamus nodded his head subtly. "Not just to know...but...to be..."

Silence.

Jordan grabbed for a second cigarette.


	18. To Let Go

A thousand eyes stared at him from around the room. The room only held himself.

He stared back into those pairs of eyes, all different colors, sizes, shapes, he stared back into them all. They didn't blink, neither did he, they couldn't, he couldn't, he felt as dead as all of them. His eyes flicked from one pair to the next, watching them as they did him, both seeing the pain lapping over the other's eyes. Even with the brightest of smiles or most convincing of faces, those eyes were what bled out the interior secrets.

Their faces hung all around the room of Seamus' shared office, feeling as if he had met every single one of them, but truthfully, he had only shaken their hands through imaginative flashbacks, but again, his hand always went through theirs. For they were but ghosts, and he was facing the facts that he was living, breathing, and human. He wasn't a picture on the wall, he was simply the one who put them there.

His hands and feet trailed after his eyes, placing up the information underneath of the pictures, but those words weren't half as important as the faces, the faces of lust, the faces of greed, the faces of seven deadly sins that boiled and belonged in the pits of hell. He only said it because he too belonged there, owning a bit from every sin to create the man and monster known as Seamus O'Doherty.

His wrath still surged on after his sudden downfall, that passion within him just folding into a bitter anger towards everyone, thing. And he stopped. He stopped trying in life, his motivation gone, himself finding it pathetic to see how much he depended on his wife. He wasn't living for her anymore, he was letting life erode him, craters were left in his skin that only grew larger with time, time being seconds.

Seconds.

He tried to fill those holes with all he could get, and throwing away the help, he didn't want help, he just wanted his life back. The greed within him took advantage of his frail self, himself feasting on the generosity of others, loving the pain, hating the pain, bipolar towards his gluttony of other's kindness and attempts.

He wasn't full proud of himself, it wasn't him who he spoke of, that being a topic he avoided purposefully. But it was always his life that tumbled off of his tongue, his case, his wife, his daughter, his friend, his problems that were unsolvable and pain inducing. Him, him, him. He was jealous towards those who lived greater and better lives, how perfect their lives were as his was scraping against the pavement.

Jordan was right. There was a process of loss, and Seamus suffered greatly from it, red scars bleeding up and down his back as it whipped him over and over. First, he missed her face, then her voice, then her presence. Soon, it was the memories, the times of all sorts that clogged his memory bank. Lastly, it was the love, the connection, interaction, touch. The sex. That lust. He missed it, he needed it, he wanted it...

He sucked in a breath, finding himself staring into the eyes of lust themselves.

Ellen Mathewson, the age of forty two when she died, still had a life ahead of her, Seamus pondering how she could even live with herself after what she had done to her son. Still had a life she didn't deserve. She was roasted alive by the flames of that burning house on Melbourne Drive, how it must have felt to burn with her act of deceit and lies. Seamus could feel her pain, a fire roaring on in the inside of his body, burning him alive, but keeping him alive as he breathed.

Breathed in that pain for air.

Her picture was of a beautiful woman not appearing her age, her hair a light orange, her eyes a rare blue, her skin pale and soft like her lips, a red, cherry blossom shade, that same color of the blood that stained her hands. She wasn't as innocent as her photo entailed, within the passages pasted below her name, it brought out the darker side to her, the second half of her face that was the devil to her angel. She didn't own an angel.

Based on that photo, you'd never think she'd hurt her son. She had not only hurt him, but abused him to the point of near insanity with the slaps, the cuts, the neglect, the apathy, the molestation. Based on that photo, you'd think she'd be as pure as a saint dressed in white. She took pleasure in seeing her son wither and break, doing all she could just to see those cracks form in his light blue eyes. Based on that photo, you'd think she'd be off somewhere, living her life the way she dreamed it.

Her body was only burned, then burned again, her remains cremated, not even earning a grave in the cemetery.

His eyes could no longer stare into her faulty ones, it causing him pain to see into that horrible soul, to know what even the nicest people on earth were capable of. And to know of the ones he didn't. His eyes darted to the left of her picture, another pasted next to it, his blue eyes reading over the black letters typed out to spell his name.

Kevin MacFarlane.

His life hadn't been run down in Jordan's words yet, but Seamus could piece together what hadn't been spoken. Kevin, too, was of lust, that description in his biography saying he had a few girlfriends here and there was part lie and part truth. Those women to Kevin were not of interest in long term relationships, taking advantage of their young minds for his own sexual arousal.

It wasn't hard for someone of his age and looks, abusing both his young age and handsome features to manipulate and copulation. His deceiving brown eyes with a tinge of a caramel shine. His black hair growing out and attractive, his cheek bones impressive, his smile one to lure them in, his body to keep them, and that mystery hidden behind his eyes to leave them without guilt, a care.

That fiery, false love in his heart.

That fiery damnation he was sentenced to with the burns on his body.

That was the punishment of lust, to be burned with fire and brimstone, the end of Kevin, the end of Ellen. For their bodies to be swallowed by embers and flames, the resemblance of pain within love, and simply just pain when there is no love. The last feeling, they felt were their skin searing, their lungs suffocating, the heat being too much to bear, they could feel, smell, hear, and taste everything, but they could not. Fear left them blind.

Love left them blind.

Seamus could smell the wisps of smoke himself as he turned his head, his mind registering the word 'wrath' before his eyes read it, that five letter word fitting the two men below it perfectly. Adam Mathewson, the father of a killer, the man nearly a killer himself, that sociopathic behavior in his genes, being passed from father to son. Those bits and pieces of his brutal soul making him out as the monster he used to be.

Bits and pieces as his limbs on the floor.

It must have felt nice to listen to his screams, to hear his flesh tear and the bone break, to see the blood of his father not run, but pour out his body. To know that pain was leaving his life little by little, the only pain would be breathing anymore, no more bruises, no more scars. Just...breathing...to stare into that fat, chiseled face, those possessed eyes and watch the life, the death fade...

Not once, but twice would he have that feeling, that feeling of freedom, of righteousness, of...heaven for sinner like him. Not once, but twice, and perhaps a third if he hadn't left that finger print behind. Not once. But twice. James Wilson was his second, that wrath needing to be cooled, cooled with the loss of his own blood. Those chocolate eyes unable to tell what was real, what was fake, what was life, what was death. Only Jordan stood before him, confusing him as he was all, yet none.

Real.

Fake.

Dead.

Alive.

Not once, but twice.

Seamus' eyes focused on another pair of eyes, and with time the one next to those, one pair gray, the other as dark as his filthy soul. Victims of greed, victims to greed, victims of a monster at different points in time, a five year leap between this death and that death. But their deaths were of the same, nonetheless. That excruciating death of blistering skin, nonexistent oxygen, drowned lungs, burning organs, and sensitive eyes that couldn't open.

The death of being boiled alive.

Only the body of Aron Long was discovered, chemical burns of all degrees being found on his unrecognizable body, his skin charred and black, it taking pathologists nearly a month to determine his exact cause of death, working with so little as his body was basically gone. That was the cruelest death, to be gone from the world, only still there as mangled remains, that's all Aron was remembered as, mangled remains.

What was even crueler than that was not being found at all. For someone to know of your death, but being unable to let your body be laid to rest was a terrible fate. That was the fate of Dexter Manning as he died at the age of twenty seven. Seamus could picture the body, burnt, blistered, fried, dried, innards sizzled to a crisp, eyes boiled over, still open due to the pain.

Now, his body just lain to decay in a wasteland of mildew and stench.

Anthony Cross.

Seamus' hands raised up, his picture at hand as he pasted it to the wall, those blue eyes staring at brown ones, at, not into, he didn't need to stare into those eyes to find the creature lurking inside of him. He didn't need that mouth to open to know the words he once spoke, nor did Seamus need the words of his biography to repeat the fake innocence of him, the side that only made the demon in him roar.

He didn't need him alive.

The dead said it better.

Seamus looked over into Joe Esten's eyes.

The dead said it better.

Seamus licked his lips, tasting the poison that killed them himself, it being such a bitter flavor, but yet he craved more. He envisioned their bodies paralyzed as their systems broke down, the last thing to stop was that beating heart before the lungs, a last breath, then a last beat, only one difference between the two. One's body was left for the flames to consume. The other's has yet to be found.

Seamus swallowed, that venom sliding down his throat, it tasting metallic like blood as blood was a poison to him. It flooded his veins, it coated his muscles, it was all he cried when he did, and there was a simple of drop of it mixed in with his royal blue eyes. It wore him down, it weighed him down, chains on his ankles, cuffs on his feet, holding him back, breaking him, breaking him...

He licked his lips again, all he could taste was cigarette smoke.

He turned his head again, eyes reading over the words he put on the wall, each one a wrinkle in time, each one bringing out the other side in each of the two men under envy.

The body of eighteen year old, Steven Lawrence Johnson, was identified last night after his corpse had been found upon many in ashes and soot of the house fire on 132 Melbourne Drive. The fire started anywhere from eight to eleven p.m. but the cause of death was not of the flames, as most of the victims found in that house.

Johnson was close with the owners of the home, being friends with their son, Jordan, before his unexpected demise. It is unknown as to why Johnson was targeted to be a part of this grizzly crime scene, his parents saying he had little to no enemies. The teen disappeared the 17th of December, his murder taking place perhaps a week after that, his body hidden inside of the Mathewson residence as both parents, Adam and Ellen, were away.

Unfortunately, Steven as well as the six others will not be brought to justice as their claimed killer, Jayden Mathewson, had mysteriously disappeared, his body presumed dead as he, too, died in that house fire.

Seamus read it again and again, smiling snidely at the words, what they said and what they didn't. What those words stated straightforward, and what they avoided with their weakening strength. They couldn't say it, that terrible death of Steven Johnson, they couldn't even say it. They didn't want to burn their tongues with those words as their minds were already scarred, they wanted to remain on the light side of things.

But Seamus knew of the darkness.

They had found Steven's body chained by his ankles and wrists, his body still dangling from the ceiling to the floor. His body frozen before thawed, then burned with an act he deserved from hell on earth, from the devil roaming the streets with eyes as black as coal and as empty as that husk of a heart lain dead in his chest. How one could twist and tuck away the truth, giving the crowd the Mr. Brightside, the light.

It was just a lie. There was no light in the case, fourteen lain dead in seven different ways, and Seamus' eyes glazed over the words of the men frozen in time, having their bodies turn into ice, and match the cracks in Jordan's blueberry eyes. And those eyes of a brown and those of a green were frozen shut, unable to see their nightmare in front of them. That is true pain, the pain of Steven Johnson and Aleks Marchant.

Seamus' eyes looked more to the left, his eyes catching another of blue, as he kept moving in that same direction, he met the eyes of a dark, dark brown. He pondered it in his head, two practical strangers bound together by a death so unforgettable. Different times at which they lived, different areas, different interests, connections, lives completely. But owning that sin they simply called an incurable flaw, that deadly label of pride.

How different the men looked, Seamus compared. One blond, the other with raven black hair. One's facial just beginning to grow out as the other owned a beard. One tall, one taller than the other, their ages near, but far, one was paler, one was bulkier, one was thinner, one had a pink tinge mixed in with his light skin. One then, one now. One first, one second. One Maxwell Gonzales, one Spencer Lovell.

Both pride, suffering from the same death committed by the same person. Taking the wonders of how far an arm can bend, a leg can lift, and using it as a method of torture as slowly the human body was contorted until a soul no longer possessed it, it just being a beaten, bloody corpse. A body with a face. Just an ended chapter of the continuous story of life, some endings happier than others.

He looked at another face.

Brown eyes and chubby features, hair a wild mess and face simply plain, Seamus studied a photo of what used to be the man named Nicholas Campbell, just another one of the men who tormented Jordan throughout his life, another hole in Jordan's skin, another tumor to weigh down his mind, to infect it, to ruin it. And he did his mind, Jordan destroyed the other from the outside in.

He crammed his throat with snakes, toads, and rats, him consuming them as they consumed him. The only flavor he tasted was bitter blood, hearing and feeling the creatures slide and slither down his throat, lodge themselves, and begin to burrow away into the thin, fragile organs of the man of gluttony. It burned to swallow, it burned to scream, the echoes of time still ringing in Seamus' ears, some in that voice he never had the chance to hear, some in a tone all too familiar.

S...Seamus...?!?

His eyes rose up to the word 'gluttony' above Nick's head before they traveled back down, the flashbacks arriving before the recognition of Dan's face. The woeful story replayed again in Seamus' mind, such fears lurking in every corner, every letter of every word that slipped by Jordan's chipping lips. The elevator, that cell, that chamber of which another life was lost, the reflection afterwards.

Seamus...Seamus..?!?

His eyes traveled back to those eyes of lust, beautiful, devious, dead. A circle, he just wound up in a circle, his thoughts there in front of him, but to get them in order would take away the power be didn't even own. Simple energy. He closed his eyes, opening them slowly, feeling fatigue settle into its home, just behind the eyes like a migraine waiting to pulsate.

He was finding it harder to concentrate, even wondering what he was even searching for anymore in the case, either the seven missing bodies, or possibly himself. He saw more of himself in the eyes of a killer than his own bathroom mirror, than from his job, in his daughter, from his friend. Even that small reflection of himself in his wedding ring didn't give him any answers. It gave him nothing, but that voice screaming in his ears, that voice he had always wanted to hear again.

S...Seamus...?

...Ashley...?

He jolted out of his haze by a vibrating in his pocket, his hand fishing in to pull out his black cased phone, that three letter nickname of Liz appearing on the screen, both relieved to be taken away from his stress, but worried that the phone call would only contribute more onto his aching shoulders and back. He was hesitant, but swallowed as he slid the screen to the right, picking up the phone to hear that familiar voice in his ear, but not the one he had been yearning for for nearly a month.

...S...Sea...Seamus...Seamus...

"Hey, Liz." Seamus mumbled into the receiver, his own voice sounding unrecognizable to his ears, hoping it didn't sound as so to one of the few people he had left. "How is everything?" He wondered, checking up, hating himself for asking over the phone instead of right there, at home, with the remains of a family who...loved him...

"We're good. " Liz's soft voice replied, herself sounding a bit exhausted from the stress and clatter that had gone down a few mere hours ago. "We just got home, Stefani fell asleep in the car." Liz explained, updating her brother in law with a quiet voice. "Pain killers knocked the poor kid out."

She chuckled lightly, Seamus vaguely smiling at the sound, it was good to hear Liz laugh again, it made him feel as if he were there with her, he had never wanted to be at home so much. "Is there anything else the doctor said?" He wondered, licking his cracked lips just to feel that burn. To love pain...

Liz nodded, but the motion going unseen. "Yeah, uh, she's going to need painkillers for only one more day, the pain shouldn't bother her that much after that." She paused, trying to recall any other needed information. "The fracture in her arm is going to need a month or so to heal, I made an appointment for you two on the sixteenth to get an x-ray done.

"And she has a cast that will probably be changed to a brace later on, depending on the recovery she makes." Liz concluded, his voice still distant and tired. "But other than that, she's doing fine, sleeping the day away." She giggled again, easing Seamus' frayed nerves just a little more.

Seamus owned a small smile, Liz could feel it from the other side of the line. "That's good to hear, I'm...I'm really glad." He was silent for a moment or two. "How about you, how are you?" He asked, slightly concerned for her timbre, it being low and weary. It unsettled Seamus' heart again.

Liz sighed. "A bit frazzled from being called out of work to all of this, but...I'm okay." She answered honestly, Seamus admiring her, wishing he could speak the truth as straightforwardly as she could. "I was thinking about taking a nap myself." She chuckled lightly. "Either that or eat everything in your fridge."

Seamus laughed at that, her sister and herself owning that same type of cute humor he couldn't get enough of. "Help yourself to whatever you want." He tagged along, but soon the laughter died down as it always did.

The line went quiet too fast. "Hey, uh...," Liz cleared her throat, "w...when you plan on...you know...coming home?" She asked, not wanting to sound rude or nosy. "I know you've been busy and flustered really, but it's just...Stef misses you and..." She paused. "Frankly, I need you here..."

Seamus closed his eyes, that head ache beginning to pound away. "I...I know, I'm so sorry I haven't been there, I should be, I...I...I should be..." He blamed himself, feeling a sharp pain dig its way into his sensitive stomach. "I'll...I'll see if I can take off earlier it have a few days off soon..." He attempted to make Liz feel better, but he knew he wouldn't go through with his claims.

He needed to work.

"I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you." Liz muttered, those two words breaking Seamus' heart further. "I'll...I'll let you get back to work." She starting the send off of their conversations, it was basically routine to her now, her mind shutting down as those same words always flew out of her mouth. Seamus needed to work, she understood that, but his job wasn't the only thing needing his attention.

"I'll try to call you later." He held back that word 'promise' with the tip of his tongue. "I'll see you A...Liz..." He covered up, hearing that same departure from her before he ended the call. He placed his phone onto his desk, sighing desperately, his mind beginning to lose it.

Ashley.

He wanted to say Ashley.

...Se...Seam...Seamus...

That soft voice rang in his ears, it fading from the voice of his sister in law, a calm, low mutter as she simply spoke of the day, not having a problem with being honest about herself. It was a voice hadn't heard in days, weeks, a few days shy of month, he was close to losing count. It was that needed voice that disappeared from his life, that voice whispering as a cry of help.

It mumbled in his ear as his eyes sprung open, heart pounding against his chest before the beating ended altogether. That voice sounded so real, it flowing past his ears like a Doppler shift, but his ears, his mind, his eyes playing him for a fool, believing that she was truly there, arms open and awaiting his warm arms. But it wasn't her pale skin, her dark hair, her pink lips, her precious smile standing in front of him after all that time.

Simply just those eyes of wrath, a pair of honeydew brown, and a pair of nearly black.

He stared deeper into those brown eyes, his mind wandering places where Seamus forbade it to, but his control was of a woman's in the earliest waves of feminism. Scrambled thoughts were only knotted tighter in Seamus' mind, blood pouring out like sweat down his forehead, and it wouldn't wipe away so easily as his anxiety began to rumble in the pit of his shattered soul.

With a will and a way, those lives could have been saved, those greedy, ungrateful, foolish lives could have been spared of a harrowing demise, but eventually, not the demise. They could have been saved, they could have been found alive, they could have been still living their lives today, but now, that was simply impossible. Those lives were wasted, taken and never given back to prove a point no one understood.

Seamus could have saved them, if not then, then now, if not at first, then at second, somehow, he could have saved someone, be it just one person. What stopped him? He had all the information, the clues, the experience. Was it the drive? Wad the inspiration? Was it the worried of falling out? The struggles of falling back in? The confusion? The apathy?

The connection?

He felt guilt wash over him, taking away a little more of him, so little he already had. The connection, that's what prevented him from saving those lives, that lack of connection, interaction, touch. Those people, those lives, weren't near and dear to his so called heart, his mind tricking him into believing that they didn't matter. He sighed heavily, despising himself for ever thinking that way, to think that a person was simple less than that just because he didn't know them.

Others did, others knew them, family, friends, people near, people far. They had lives, they had connections, relationships, meaning to other people, meaning to themselves. They were human beings, miraculous inventions that to this day, no one fully understands, and that is the beauty of it. Seamus destroyed that beauty with the selfishness of his own life, he didn't save those desperate and faulty lives because of that lack of connection.

What would you have preferred, that irritating voice in the corner of his mind spoke in that unsettlingly familiar tone, would you prefer that connection? For those victims to be the ones in your life, for them to be gone in order for you to start caring for once? For you to be drowning and pain and loving every second and shock of it, to lose all life had given you just to understand what little there is to life?

That would just be heaven to you, wouldn't it?

His mind started reeling in a state of panic, believing in what if's rather than the facts. His eyes gazed even harder into those brown eyes until the morphed into a pair he couldn't deny as recognizable. He slowly began to familiarize himself with the face, it not being that attractive one of James Wilson, it soon became the one of Eddie.

It was Eddie's face on the wall, Eddie was a part of the case, missing from life, Seamus' life, and pronounced dead with a body left to be unfound. Seamus shook his head in nonbelief, trying to tell himself that it wasn't real, but his mind only plunged further into his nightmares. Those brown eyes of Eddie appeared so innocent, those eyes being a pair that Seamus couldn't save, he could only see him die in his own battered mind.

He winced in pain as he closed his eyes tightly, trying to stay strong, not wanting to give into the fight, but feeling blow after blow leave bruises all over his body. Fear began to develop in his mind as he turned his head away, slowly opening his eyes, trying to forget the stare of those eyes of Eddie off of him, but finding more stress as he found another pair of eyes he knew all too well, a face he knew all too well.

He found himself staring into the eyes of Liz, those soft, caramel like eyes of hers staring blankly back into his. She wore of face of no hope and desperation, begging for an unstained soul, for an unbruised heart, for her bloodstream to flow red and clear, than dark crimson and with glass cutting the marrow of her bones. Those beckoning eyes of her tattooed themselves onto and into Seamus' cluttered mind.

His eyes frantically moved to the left, such sweet eyes of his daughter plastered on the wall, a sharp pang stinging him entirely, he was the reason his own daughter was gone, dead, unable to live because of her lifeless father. Tears flooded his eyes as he couldn't bare to see her smiling face, the dreams and reality of losing her to something else, someone else began to break his heart, his heart turning to stone, an irreversible process.

He stared straight ahead, still stuck in the chamber of his own imagination, his orbs meeting the crystal ones that he could only identify as his own, the face he barely recognized to be his. His photo was now on the wall, not a sin above it, but none could describe him as he was all and then a few. He had lost himself to that monster inside of him, the man he used to be withering and dying like a shrub, a flower to simply die when things grew too cold.

Seamus O'Doherty was dead.

And...so was she...

Next to his photo hung another, one he couldn't look at, but as he turned away from it, it burned into his eyes, leaving both injured and sightless. That photo of her, Ashley Beth O'Doherty, the other half of his wedding ring, the love of his life, his best friend, the mother of his child. That didn't describe her anymore. She was Ashley Beth O'Doherty, just another person barely cared for in such a world, stolen from life, her face only seen in pictures, the truth about her unknown as people just drew half-minded assumptions.

Ashley was dead.

His heart couldn't take it.

His heart couldn't take it when reality sunk back in, and those eyes of her's were covered, piled under the weight of another case, piled under Seamus' regret.

He had taken her case down...

His eyes clicked open yet again as he drew in a breath, a sudden gasp for air as a knock was heard on his office door. His breaths were choppy and short, his eyes bouncing off of this wall onto that, recognizing the eyes, but not ad the ones close to him, his friend, his sister, his daughter, himself, his wife. Did he even have a wife...? Reality began to settle around him, Seamus finding himself to be at work again, those pictures of the walls being of those fourteen lost souls, eyes of all different colors, sizes, shapes.

He turned to face the office door as he heard it open, relieved to see those eyes of Eddie, not ones staring aimlessly on a sheet of crinkled paper, but in front of him, colorful, full of emotion, and above all, blinking. He was alive. Eddie was alive. He greeted him the causal way between them, with slight ease and slight caution, fearing one another, but still holding onto that comfort that was hidden below the surface.

Eddie's eyes darted around the room, taking everything in before bringing it up. "What's all of this?" He asked, eyes doing a second lap around the room before ending on Seamus' blue ones. Eddie smiled lightly, finding a bit of hope in his friend, believing that the detective in him was back.

Seamus turned his head back to the photos on the wall. "The Mathewson case." Seamus replied, proud of his work, but feeling like a fraud as he wasn't doing this for the bodies anymore, he was doing this to just do...something with his life. To make himself matter, to give himself a definition-less purpose, just to make sure he didn't fade anymore from life than he already had.

Eddie's smile faded slightly, not wanting to go through the same old song and dance. "What have you found?" He asked, on the inside wondering 'why are you still on this?'.

Seamus licked his dry lips. "He killed seven people due to the fact that they were sins." Seamus described, Seamus focused on the faces ahead of him as Eddie just watched that tired face of his friend return back to the man he was. Even if it were just for a moment, Eddie was pleased with meeting that man again that he had befriended so many years ago.

"One cut into pieces," Seamus described, "one frozen to death, another force fed malignantly." Hos stomach knotted itself. "Boiled, broken bones, bitten with bane, and burned." The words smoothly ran off of his tongue and into the air. He paused, allowing Eddie to process the words. Seamus took a small breath. "That was five years ago."

Eddie raised an eyebrow above the other before piecing together two and two in his intact mind, something else Seamus envied. "This...This isn't the first time he's killed?" Eddie asked with a low voice, both horrified and amazed at such a discovery, such a realistic truth.

Seamus nodded, aiming his head towards his partner, giving him more attention than he had himself in the past couple of weeks, the past twenty eight days. And counting. "He's repeating the same murders as before, to restart some sort of cycle." Seamus shook his head at the idea of it, Eddie left in a state of shock. "He was responsible for seven murders and a house fire to cover up the evidence."

Eddie bit at his bottom lip, questions of his own spurring left and right. "Why was he never charged or arrested for this?" He wondered, his voice sounding outraged as he relied on Seamus for the answer. Seamus' eyes were darker than his own, suffering from indescribable pains to just get an answer.

That was the detective Seamus used to be.

Eddie was still convinced that he was.

Seamus swallowed, having to retell Jordan's life story in a short, summarized way, a way it didn't deserve, that pain and suffering needing to be told in the way it wad given. "He was under the alias of his dead, twin brother." Eddie was silent. "Back in 2005, his brother had fallen from a tree to his death, and Jordan's parents blame him for it." He explained, it hurting Eddie's ears to hear less than Seamus' lips and tongue to speak.

"They wanted their son back, so they forced Jordan to become his brother Jayden." Seamus sighed under his breath. "I give them credit for a creative charade...it actually worked..." He stopped, Eddie remaining patient. "They made Jordan turn into someone who he wasn't, punishing him whenever he didn't obey, the abuse didn't help, it only..., He paused momentarily, "it only...

"...caused the cracks in his eyes..."

Eddie listened in to his tone of voice, how it died down with a hint, a weight of compassion, such an unsettling thing to hear towards someone like Jordan Mathewson. His eyes turned a bit softer as well, Eddie feeling worry crawl up his skin as Seamus was falling again, Eddie afraid that this time, he couldn't save him.

"Please don't tell me you're feeling sympathy for him." Eddie commented, knowing he was just falling into a trap, already knowing the answer to his question, but wanting, needing it to be false. Seamus didn't look at Eddie in the eye nor in his general direction, his head only tilting down at the statement. That was all Eddie needed. "He's a killer, god damn it-"

"Don't call him a killer." Seamus interrupted, his voice stern and bitter.

Eddie scoffed. "Why are you acting as if he means so much to you?" Eddie fought, unbelieving of the mess Seamus had collapsed into within a few mere days.

Seamus still didn't stare at his friend in the eye. "Because I...I'm the only one who understand him..." He tried his best to explain, but even to his ears, that answer was weak.

"Says the broken detective who's been absent for nearly a month." Eddie insulted, plucking another string of Seamus' heart, the both of them could hear it snap as Seamus cringed.

"Was that really my fault, Eddie?" The blond snapped, his head whipping up, those blue eyes even more damaged than the last time Eddie saw them. "I guess I should've been okay after my wife was taken from me." Eddie felt a swarm of fault hover above him, trying to block it out of his weakening mind. Seamus huffed a breath, trying to make his way back to the interrogation room, the only place that felt like home, before a presence, a being, a body prevented him.

"Move out of my way Eddie." The other sternly commanded to the shorter of the two, the tan man block Seamus' only exit, only entrance between their room and just outside.

"No." Eddie declined, shaking his head subtly. "I'm not going to let this case get out of control like Ashley's." Eddie admitted, his brown eyes growing distant, Seamus was just a stranger to him anymore, the remains of their friendship being swept away.

Seamus forced a chuckle. "Out of control?" He asked, mocking the man he used to call his friend. "That's coming from the man who gave up on her from the start!"

"Because everyone else has, Seamus!" Eddie yelled back, giving him the truth straightforward instead of even coating it with the lightest, the smallest of sugar. "There's no point in continuing her case! When will you admit she's dead?!?" Eddie screamed, feeling his brown eyes change from brown to burgundy, on their way to blazing red.

Seamus barred his teeth. "You say that like it's a simple thing to admit." Seamus muttered, insult causing another string from his heart to snap. "You don't understand, nor care about my pain, so stop trying to help!" He shouted, giving Eddie a long, hard look.

"Get out of my way." He demanded, trying to push past the other.

"No."

"What the fuck do you want from me?!?" Seamus frustratedly yelled, backing away from the door and his friend, feeling that pent up rage leave his body in a destructive way. "I'm done listening to you, Eddie! I took breaks, I joined this case to cope, I saw your fucking therapist! What more do you want from me?" Their argument caused silence from outside, all ears listening in, both of the men oblivious to the outside world, the two just focusing on the hatred they owned for one another.

"I don't want you to, I need you to let go!" Eddie told him just like he had before and before, again and again. He just wanted his friend back and the only way to do that would be to talk to the beast that took him.

"Of what?!?" Seamus threw his hands up in the air. "What do I have to let go of when I have nothing to hold onto?!?" He raised his tone even higher, his throat feeling on fire, he swore he could taste blood.

"I need you to let this case go! All the work that needed to be done is done!" Eddie was feeling even frailer, tired of fighting with his friend, but it was all their connection fed on anymore, the fights, the distance, the scraps of what used to be better times.

Going.

Going.

Gone.

Like snowflakes.

Like her.

"What work?!?" Vexation was pouring down Seamus' face in the form of tears. "You didn't do anything! All you did was find him guilty! I'm the only one giving a damn as to why!" Seamus defended, his fists shaking, hands jittering, knuckles whiter than white.

"And for what?!?" Eddie screamed. "To feel important?!? To feel needed?!? To forgive yourself about Ashley?!?"

"Stop bringing her into this!"

"Not until you let go!" Eddie's eyes had grown to be as dark as Seamus', that innocence gone. "Not until you admit she's a lost hope! She's dead, Seamus! She was abducted and murdered because her husband is a worthless piece of shit that didn't even try to help her!" Eddie was seething with resentment, and he knew, regret would soon bask over him like a hangover.

"You fucking bastard!" Seamus yelled before taking a step forward, attempting to push his friend out of the way, only to be aggressively shoved back, Eddie's elbow piercing Seamus in the gut. That only fed the fire within the blond as his shaking fist rose to Eddie's face, moving in a quick motion and landing a punch that forced Eddie to fall to the ground.

Eddie groaned in pain, holding a hand to his nose, blood beginning to pour out, the sensitivity being too much for Eddie's pain threshold. He held in tears as he tried to pull him together, Seamus taking away some of his parts. Seamus only looked down from above at his partner, feeling nothing, but detestation power him, yet when seeing his friend in pain, it left that cold, lonesome boy to possess his frail body again.

Eddie slowly stood up, using Seamus' desk as an aid in supporting his weight, his hand still covering his bloodied nose, his eyes still watering and scared. Seamus backed away, not knowing what to say, just leaving the silence to fill the room. Eddie shook his head, holding in light sobs, his eyes directly on Seamus', Seamus seeing a second crack form in the iris of Eddie's right eye.

Eddie owned a crack.

"Who are you?" Eddie asked, those three words snapping Seamus' heart in half, the half completely covered in stone.

Seamus couldn't say anything as Eddie wiped more at the tears on his eyes than the blood on his face, his other hand pulling open the door and closing it behind him with a bang to echo throughout the building for hours. Seamus thought over Eddie's words, finding the answer to not be there, his mind blank, but clouded, the answer within grasp, but fading away like a cloud of smoke.

...smoke...

He felt his hand moving around in his pocket, searching for something that wasn't there, his mind taking control again to know what he wanted, what he craved, what had happened to Seamus and what had taken over him.

Who are you?

"I...I'm Jordan Mathewson..."


	19. One More Day

His feet slid, but marched back to the interrogation room, attempting to ignore the stares and glances he received from surrounding others, those stares and glances that looked down upon Seamus, Seamus despising each and every one of their snide looks. They weren't better than him, their high horses were soon to fall, their pain being shown to the world through a crystal clear soul.

That's what Seamus' was, not dark, not opaque, not nonexistent, but clear, see through, exposed to beings that would simply judge such an ugly thing. The scowls, the narrowed eyes, the silence received from people, Seamus just took it all in and reflected it back, faces he mirrored. He was lucky for that was all the saw, their own faces thrown back at them, they didn't see Seamus' skin peel away to allow that monster to roam around in the light of day.

They only saw his doing, not he himself. They heard the yells, they didn't see the blazing color of his eyes. They heard the scuffle going about, they didn't see the fear Seamus could cause to another. They saw Eddie's face, the blood, the tears, the vexation, but they didn't get to see the monster who did it. Who walked out of that office was still, but a stranger, but that stranger was just a corpse with human qualities, not a beast with eyes so beady and dark.

They just saw their reflection plastered on Seamus' face.

His heart hung from its strings in his chest, he had raged too much against that dying light, for now, that dying light was his heart, he had taken that pain in with few simple breaths, his heart now sputtering, struggling to live. He had abused another thing in his dreary life, bruising it daily until he couldn't support it, nor it support him. At times, he called himself a hurricane, destroying everything in his path, unable to cope with the loneliness or the other side of him, that other side that was taking over.

He couldn't get the sight out of his mind, starting with innocently knitted eyebrows, frightful eyes, a mouth too petrified to speak, and blood trickling down from his small nose to his dimpled chin. To see his friend like that was worse than any missing persons report his mind manifested in nightmares. He had been hurting his friend for far too long, ignoring him, mocking him, insulting him, and weighing down his shoulders with pain.

It wasn't until then did he let out more anger than he intended.

He had injured his best friend with his own hands, his own fist with alabaster knuckles, his own conscious mind watching his friend's eyes break a bit more, such a guilt was unbearable. He had made his best friend afraid of him, he had owned that horror for quite some time, but now Eddie bought into the fear. He had shown Eddie the darkest side to him, and it simply chased him away like all of the others.

He had lost his wife due to his oblivious apathy, a flaw of his that made him feel weaker than ever. He had destroyed the connection with his own daughter, she still had a life ahead of her, and Seamus had convinced himself that it would be better without him. He had lost his sister in law no matter how many times she claimed she was still there, she only stood by him to pose as a crutch, but even as that, she was bending, breaking under his weight.

Now he had lost the friend he had had with him for a good portion of his life, a man he had trusted for years on end, a man who he had hurt for the last time. Seamus couldn't continue on like that, no family, no friends with a job he couldn't bare to show up to anymore. He had nothing to support him, his heart, his mind, his emotions, and self control were powered down one by one, himself just growing emptier and emptier, an even hollower shell of himself.

He had nothing.

Nothing except for that haunting entity with ears outside of the walls.

So he opened that office door, acknowledged the stares and glares, and kept uncertainly trudging towards that interrogation room. His mind was too weak compared to the force of his body, he himself doing something before the control of his brain responded to it, his rash decisions, his thoughtless words, his method to sleep and the tears before, one beer bottle, two beer bottles, three.

His decision to stare at himself in the mirror, the eyes of a similarly different person.

The tension had died down after his small walk, he could still feel the stares from behind his back, but they were just of memories, just of the usual, eyes always followed him wherever he went. He was paranoid, he didn't own so much before, but now it consumed him whole, its stomach bursting. He couldn't walk from this place to that place without feeling watched, he couldn't work without feeling a stare, he couldn't eat at times, sometimes he'd refrain from speaking, he couldn't sleep without feeling eyes on him.

They watched him as his own eyes led him blindly astray.

He sighed as he met the door, pushing open the first door of two, but his typhlotic eyes found a barricade between himself and the only other person in his life anymore. It wasn't object, yet an obstacle, a man sitting in a chair in front of him, his head aimed down, but Seamus could still make out his simple features.

His tired, gray eyes that seemed to have faded from their natural color, from something bold, from something bright that could only be seen between the small textures of his irises. His face was starting to show wrinkles, his stubble beginning to cover that fact up, but it couldn't hide the creases underneath of his eyes and carving down the skin of his cheeks. His hair owned patches to match is silver eyes, the original color seemed to be a dark brown, but one color overlapped the other.

Seamus recognized the man.

"Captain Moss?" Seamus asked concernedly, more for himself the fifty two year old man seated in front of him, it was never a good sign to see his boss out of the position of an officer. "What are you doing h-"

"You know better than to pull that bullshit with me, O'Doherty." Moss' husky voice spoke with a slight tone of annoyance, Seamus feeling as if he were the one to have the barrel of a gun pressed to his head, not knowing whether the other would pull the trigger. He didn't have it in him to kill a murderer, but Moss did, to kill a murderer, an innocent, and even one the members on his team.

Everyone knew of Moss' past, how he had earned his rank in his job, it wasn't just skill or luck. It was what that mind had suffered, what his heart had lost, what those eyes had seen that drained them from their lively color to something so bland and so bleak. Some say they used to be blue, others thought brown like his hair, a few believed they had been yellow, and the rest believing they had always been that way.

Seamus knew they always hadn't been that way.

What those eyes saw couldn't be described clearly in words, even the pictures from the case couldn't capture the feeling of that room, of that place at that time. Moss wasn't a captain yet, close on becoming a lieutenant, yet still just a detective on the job. He and his team were assigned to a call from a woman claiming she and her children had been held hostage by her crazed husband, this wasn't the first call like that, it surely wasn't the last.

They had located the family home, Davis, Seamus would always remember that last name, Davis. They were able to rescue the woman, her name Amy, and place her husband, Mark, in custody. His crime was more than just terrorizing his family, he was sentenced to life in prison on the count of the three murders of his children.

Each of the children had received two gun shots to the dead, their names Jaclyn, Seth, and Harrison, ages ten years, six years, and eight months old. Their bodies were found in the living room, their blood painting the furniture, the sight behind too hard on Moss' eyes. He had helped bag the bodies, restraining the tears when lifting the girl and the boy, unable to keep himself together when lifting the child of not even a year, his blue eyes still open.

All he could do was stare into those innocent, little eyes.

His own faded to a rain cloud gray.

Moss had children and a wife of his own, that case affecting him the hardest out of his team, he never truly bounced back from then, part of him still stuck in the darkness of the world. It had helped him to become more stable as a detective, but as a person, it left a scar from the left side of his face to the right.

He saw it everytime he looked in the mirror.

Those gray eyes lifted up to ones of crackled blue, the sight being colder than staring into Jordan's, Seamus could feel the chill. "I saw Cardona's face." Moss needed not to say more on that as Seamus face expressed the guilt he had bottled away, making his eyes break a crack more, making his face seem older, more tired, depressed. Moss ignored his own empathy.

"What has been going on with you?" He asked, Seamus feeling insulted by that, by those simple words and that simple timbre. "You're gone for three weeks, just about, refusing to work, and now you can't let this Mathewson case go?" He rhetorically asked, Seamus allowing the sentence to rip him limb from limb, his bare bones exposed to the air, to the pain of the world.

Seamus' bottom lip nearly quivered. "I need to do my job, sir." Was all he could say, he had no time to get in depth about his connection, his attachment with the man who possessed fourteen souls in the palms of his hands. In the end, he'd end up talking about him, an activity he despised, he'd never get used to it even if he were talking about easy and happy things.

It had been twenty eight days.

He still wasn't used to it.

Moss licked his pink lips. "Your job is to protect and serve, not to bury yourself in unnecessary work just to hide your skinny ass." Seamus bit his lip to silence himself, afraid to open his lips, experiencing true fear. "Why are you still on this case, O'Doherty?" Moss asked, Seamus' voice feeling frail in his throat, he didn't want to answer, he didn't want to speak, but all choices have consequences, his choice was to hurt everyone and thing he loved until their backs turned on him.

He was the one to stab the knife in his own.

"B...Because no one is taking the time to see it through-"

"It's also just giving you something to do." Moss interrupted, expelling the truth, his ears deaf to Seamus' slew of excuses. "You think you're doing right by moving onto another case, but you're doing the same thing as you did before." Moss didn't let Seamus have a moment to breathe, the air tasting like metal, like blades awaiting to slice his body. "Abusing your role as a detective." Seamus drank in his boss' bitter voice.

"The only reason you even showed up to work last month was to continue a game of cat and mouse simply against yourself." Moss pushed, Seamus unable to push back, feeling that weak man he once called himself take over for the moment being, hating how it felt to be belittled, to be disgraced, to be human. He had no power like that creature inside of him, against that creature inside of him. So he took in the pain, admitted the weakness to feed the beast within.

"You didn't do what you call your job." Seamus felt his stomach churn. "You barely participated in finding the Halliday killer, you were oblivious to the disappearance of sixteen year old Astrid Connors, you didn't even come into the office when a body was found on the sidewalk of Elwood Avenue." Seamus only dipped his head, confessing to the fault without a single, helpless word.

Moss shook his head. "You just let your pain eat away at you as you solely search for your wife, a case that should've been closed weeks ago." Seamus couldn't look at his boss in the eye, his head feeling light, his eyes feeling watery. "And now here you are taking advantage of another case. Tell me one good reason why I shouldn't fire you right now!" Moss raised his voice, Seamus feeling as if, not his job, but as if his life was on the line, a blade to the throat, a needle to the skin, a twist to the neck.

I should blow your fucking brains out...!

...Then do it...

Moss sat back in his chair, sighing at the silence given for an answer to his question. "That's right. There isn't one." Another of Seamus' heartstrings was in Moss' hand, it being studied, observed, criticized, and judged, it was already beginning to bruise in his hand, it was only a matter of seconds to see of it were to be plucked or only weakened. "You're one of my best detectives, O'Doherty, but ever since your wife's case, you've turned into someone I don't know. Frankly...someone I don't want to know."

Seamus wished he had that option, to choose who to meet and who not. Everytime he stared into a mirror, he cringed at his own face, finding that person to be scary, even to him. He wished he should be so lucky as to never meet him, but shake hands he had, that person everyone found scary was the person he had to be in life. That someone unknown, that avoided nuisance people whispered about. He was that person. Someone who he didn't want to know. Someone who he didn't.

"I understand the stress that comes along with this job, I can't imagine the pain once you become the victim of a case." He paused, Seamus trying to hold onto hope, but Moss' next words set it ablaze. "But it's been the time it has, O'Doherty. Your wife disappeared on January fourth, February fourth is three days away." Moss pieced together, an unsettling affliction making home in Seamus' empty stomach.

Moss bit at his bottom lip.

Habits.

"A typical missing persons case should be allowed a week before it gets handed to another department or is pushed aside, some remain open for years, but that's only if evidence is involved." Moss reminded the other, Seamus understood all too well where their conversation was going. "This is nothing, but an open and shut case, a case that needed to be shut nearly a month back."

Seamus turned his head to the other side, unable to look in Moss' general direction, his words were already breaking apart what little had left of himself, he knew that stare, that gaze would simply freeze Seamus' pain like Jordan's, to not be able to obtain more, but to always feel the pain of the past crawl about his system. He closed his own eyes, knowing in the end, he'd be defeated.

"She was a lost cause from the start, O'Doherty."

Seamus' ears rang with those words.

"No clues, no fingerprints, no notes, no body." The last was an upside for Seamus, there wasn't a body matching hers. She was still out there, breathing, blinking, needing to be found, that was what no body meant to Seamus. To others...it meant that is was just waiting to be found... "There's not much, there's nothing to work from, and your research and searches just prove that." Seamus looked down at his wedding ring, it losing even more meaning of the little it had.

All was quiet.

"Seamus," Moss addressed the man with his first name, Seamus' heavy head lifting to reluctantly stare into his boss' eyes, finding it a polite thing to do considering it all, "...if you drop Ashley's case, I'll give you one more day for Mathewson." Moss tried to compromise, Seamus felt himself begin to split in two, tied between such an ultimatum, to choose to rescue the woman of his dreams, or to talk with a man who could've been the one to kill her.

"This case seems to mean a lot to you." Moss noted, his eyes looking to the right of him and into that other room, studying that killer on the other side of the glass. "Perhaps more than your wife's." Seamus teared up at those words, hating how Moss could say such a thing, but he didn't fight back. Jordan admired how Seamus didn't deny the truth.

"What do you say, O'Doherty?" Moss took a small pause. "Mathewson? Or your own empty life?"

Seamus was quiet, contemplating both roads in his head, ripping himself apart in the process, hating himself for considering one option, eat himself alive for not choosing the other. If he chose his wife, he'd be running in circles, chasing his own tail trying to find her while a man rots in prison for a crime fully unknown. If he chose Mathewson, he could claim justice for the lives he had taken, meanwhile that guilt for leaving his wife stranded and dying would haunt every dream, lurk in his mind, throw shadows over his eyes, and wear him down until he the moment he died, free.

He craved that pain.

"I..." He stuttered, his voice frail, his mind still trying to make itself up. "I...I...I'll start putting away Ashley's files..." He regretfully whispered, feeling his heart rise up to his throat, it wasn't beating anymore, it was just a block in his chest, a lump in his throat.

Moss sighed in what sounded like relief, Seamus didn't have the courage to look at him in the eye again. "It's good to hear you make a right decision for once. How...little...it may be." Moss had ripped a heart string from Seamus' chest, Seamus was left blinded by the blood staining his chest.

His head still hung low as he tried to escape to the room he had intended to at first, back in an environment he felt unsafe in, but comfortable in. Confiding in a killer... His left hand only rested on the doorknob before that gravelly voice spoke up again. "Before you talk to that killer again, I want you to apologize to Cardona." Seamus' head bowed lower, a cinderblock weigh down on the nape of his neck.

"It's ridiculous, the way you two have been acting, two of my best officers treating each other like children." He insulted the other harshly, Seamus just taking in the pain, breathing in, and out, in, and out. "That punch should've gotten you suspended." Moss threw his words like rocks at Seamus' bleeding body. "And you know what, it will." Seamus' stomach knotted itself once more.

"After your day is up with your 'friend' in there," He gestured his head to the two way mirror, "I don't want to see your face around here for two weeks, hopefully your act will be cleaned up by then." Seamus didn't find that as too much of a punishment, two weeks was nothing compared to the time he was already absent, it was more of a treat for the others, to not see his wasting face that no one recognized.

"If you talk with Cardona, I'll consider your leave with pay, but two weeks is two weeks." Moss summarized, attempting to give Seamus the benefit of the doubt, but his tone only shoved misery in Seamus' direction. Seamus swallowed it whole.

Seamus sighed shakily, giving in to the fight, his arms spread wife as he awaited the bullets to tear apart his body. "I'll...I'll talk to him..." He removed his hand from the now warm doorknob, a sense of disappointment washing over the detective, it only to be coated next with droplets of depression that sunk into his skin.

"I saw him head to the locker room to clean himself up." Moss informed, standing up from his seat, his height not much taller than Seamus himself. "I'd advise you to do the same." Those words left Seamus puzzled, watching Moss carefully as began to exit the room, at a last second, Moss gestures to Seamus' hands.

The door shut, leaving Seamus in still silence.

His blue eyes looked down at the paleness of his hands, his left seemed fine, the veins, the freckles, the scars he had remembered, the ring was the only thing that brought down his heart. He transferred to his right, the sight startling him, his hand shaking as his eyes only kept staring. A thin layer of Eddie's blood was coated on his right hand, it overlapping his knuckles and beginning to dry.

How can you live with blood staining your hands...?

His eyes traveled up to that two way mirror, Seamus' eyes meeting with Jordan's in an instant, the two just staring, Seamus with a horrified look, each second that ticked by, he was becoming more like Jordan, the only truth he ever tried to deny. The cracks in the eyes, the multiple personalities, the blood stained hands that never looked so innocent. Seamus looked at Jordan, scared.

Jordan only smiled for he had heard the conversation prior.

You think I can't here you beyond these walls...?

**********

"God, fuck..."

Eddie mumbled to himself, cringing at the sensitivity of his injury, blood continued to trickle down his face from his nose, it was all he could see, all he could smell, all he could...taste... His tongue ran over the cut on his lip, the blood beginning to dry and scab over, his teeth having the habit to play with it, bite at it, taste more of that metal flavor on his palate.

He placed another tissue to his nose, his back aching from arching in front of that mirror, the air hot and steamy as distant showers in the locker room ran, the pitter patter of drips and drops on the floor. Drips and drops that ran down his cupid's bow, past his bottom lip, and trickling off of his chin. He readjusted the tissue under his nose, just waiting for the bleeding to stop.

He closed his eyes, trying to process everything again, it all just ending in a big flash in his mind. The center of it all was that his best friend had hit him. That anger, that rage, that pent up frustration had boiled inside of Seamus' mind, the careless way Seamus had treated his friend had escalated from emotional, to mental, to physical. From the avoidance, to the ignorance, to the abuse.

His bottom lip trembled, he was way beyond his pain threshold.

"F...Fuck..."

Who had he befriended years ago? Who had he turned into? That blond hair losing its shade, those broken blue eyes, that face just became blander as the days went on, transformation is a natural process, but instead of it being for the better, Seamus was slowly fading. Fading from who he used to be to someone, something worse, a shadow, a silhouette, a demon, far from human, far from the man he had consumed.

Seamus was a stranger to him. There was no way of denying it, every time he saw him, his face would take more time to register in Eddie's mind. That's my friend with the blond hair, the big, blue eyes, that amazing smile, those handsome features, that wicked intelligence... That's my friend with the unkempt hair, the tired, dark eyes, a missing smile, frown, expression at all, an exploding, imploding life, a dying personality...

That's my friend with my blood on his hands and voice in his head.

Fear was the only word that Eddie could coalesce with Seamus, that four letter word summed up his life. Fear was all Seamus owned, but in a life like his, who could blame him? Fear of living, fear of death, fear of fading, fear staying the same, fear of others, fear of oneself, fear of himself. Fear of continuing life day to day and awaiting agonizing secrets, and fear of that freedom that was the five letter word death.

Seamus was made of fear, he took it in being consuming or breathing, it was what his system survived on. He woke up with it hanging over his head, and slept with it hovering above him. It chained itself to his ankles as he walked, it glued itself to his back when he felt like giving up, it possessed him whenever he wanted to change himself around, making him fall faster and harder into the hole, the grave he had dug himself.

And others feared him. He was a living nightmare to infect their humble minds, he was a plague to render them terminally ill, he was a fire to burn away their innocence and the smoke to cover their cries. Many feared him, unsure of what he was capable of, Eddie wasn't even sure, fear against fear. And he was only getting worse, more irritable, more stressed, more in pain Seamus lived in fear, lived on fear, and Eddie knew if things were any different, Seamus wouldn't be able to live. He had grown accustomed to the fear...that shook Eddie from the core...

"Sh...Shit..."

He opened his eyes, sighing as pain overlapped pain, his lip looking like it would swell, his nose would undeniably bruise. He couldn't stand to stare at his own face, his eyes tired, his tongue still able to taste the beers he had last night as well as Seamus' words, there was barely a difference, but he could taste it. But that drying blood, that puffing lip, that blemishing nose, that taste on his tongue, none of that caught his attention as much as his own eyes.

He wasn't sure he saw what he had, but he arched his back further, ignoring the ache, bringing himself closer to that mirror. He studied his own face, his own marks, his own eyes, startled by his observation. He took off his glasses hastily, his eyes still clear, but the rest of the world fuzzy to his brown eyes. He stared again, right into his own chocolate orbs, panicking at the sight.

His eyes owned cracks.

They were small, but his dull eyes picked them up, small zigs, zags, and chips etched onto his irises in no particular pattern, Eddie had see those same cracks in Seamus' eyes, and now they were breaking through onto, into his. He knew it wouldn't be long before they spread like high-strung veins, pulsing and piercing with blood. He lifted a hand to the skin of his cheek just below his right eye, staring in disbelief and frankly, sadness.

He was breaking.

Before he owned a chance to cry out the remains of and newly added pain, he heard a door open behind him, a reflection in his mirror showing that it was that friend he didn't know anymore, that belly of a monster that needed to roar. His adverted away as he relaxed his back slightly, finding the tissue he was using to be covered in blood, relaying the time as if had only been five minutes, if not less since he had picked it up.

Seamus tried to take a breath, but the air was too thick to take in. He took a small step towards the other, trying to approach him in a slow manner, in a manner to show he meant no harm which is all he did anymore. He took a second step, Eddie's eyes still focused on himself, Seamus just appearing as a ghost in that background of his mirror. He took a third, the blood on Eddie's nose more noticeable, but so was the pain in his eyes and the anger on his face.

He took a fourth step.

Eddie sighed lightly, placing his bloodied tissue into the small trashcan next to the mirror, parts of it staining his tan palm. As he went to reach for another one, a hand had beaten him to it, retrieving another from the plain green box and holding it out for the dark haired one to take. Neither of the men said a word as Eddie took it from his hand, immediately soaking up the blood that had dribbled from his nostril.

Seamus swallowed as he took a seat next to Eddie, the other man not looking at Seamus at all. Seamus expected that, his presence was weak, no one knew he was there unless he had himself known, he was a ghost, he was admitting it more and more. His blue eyes looked at Eddie before fluttering away, not wanting to bother him with awkward, meaningless stares.

His eyes, instead, trailed around the room, taking note of the small things he wouldn't have before. The sound of water splashing in the background, the constant scent of soap and aftershave wafting in the air, the tiles on the floor being white with a pale blue one thrown somewhere in the mix. The shower curtains a light tan, the steam crawling on the floor like smolder, the fog on the mirror, how could Eddie even see?

Eddie. Back to Eddie.

Seamus couldn't take the silence in the room, usually he was in acquaintance with such a soundless atmosphere, but that was due to his own fault, he wasn't about to leave another void in his life unattended. "I'm sorry." He whispered, his voice bouncing off of the walls in the widely spaced room, the words earning no reaction from the other.

Seamus lightly sighed. "About back there...," He began, his voice too low for his own ears to hear, "I...I...I didn't mean any of it...I wish I could take it back..." Eddie didn't speak, his eyes still focused on his own reflection, a reflection that was growing harder to see due to the condensation. Yet Seamus could read the words Eddue didn't say in his face and minimum body language.

Yeah, sure, you didn't mean any of it. Accidents happen, right?

Seamus heard those words in a mean tone of voice, that Latin accent fresh in his ears as he dropped his head, feeling a fist sized ache relax itself in his stomach. "I only have one more day left on the Mathewson case." Seamus told the other, trying to pass conversation between the two, just needing to hear Eddie's voice, but to show to Eddie that he was beginning to change.

"You were right, I should've given it up long ago..." Seamus mumbled, only saying those words as they were the truth, he was sick and tired of the pity from others, he wouldn't dare go fishing for it. "Why do I even bother..." He paused, his eyes studying Eddie again, his body language changing, but it still hurt Seamus to hear those words, those words he never spoke.

But you didn't and here you are, kissing my ass.

Seamus closed his eyes again, feeling another crack form underneath of his eyelid. He squinted his eyes, holding in a hiss from the pain, it burning as it left its mark. He reopened them to reveal a new crack to the world, a long, deep, harrowing gash from one side of his eye to the other. His pain was getting worse, he knew that it would be the end of him and he was just waiting for that day, that day the pain left him blind, the day he didn't need to breathe anymore, that day...that day that was coming closer and closer with every wasted second.

He opened his mouth slowly, feeling the need to just talk, his mind numb to the pain of talking about himself, it felt as if he were alone there, only speaking to his deafening ears. "...I...I let Ashley's case go..." He lowered his hand, staring at his hands, that ring, the redness of where the blood used to be, frankly ashamed of himself. A real reaction spurred from Eddie, he looked at his friend in surprise, astonished that Seamus had done such a thing, half of him in support of Seamus letting go, half of him feeling guilty, thinking that questionable wonder.

What if she was still alive?

What if I just killed her?

"I need to move on, I've let the best of me get stolen." Seamus confessed, the true him banging against that glass that separated him from the other side. He felt himself tear up, Eddie looking away at the sight, feeling that sympathy for his friend return. "I'm never going to find her..." His throat clogged itself, it nearly killing to have to say those words aloud. "I should've known that from the start..."

He stared down at his wedding ring, his hand itching to take it off, but he just couldn't. A wedding ring was hard to look at, but a tan line was worse. A wedding ring was better. He sighed, closing his eyes, basking in the silence that even proved cold in the warmness of the room. "I shouldn't have lost myself in that killer's eyes, either..." Seamus went onto say. "I'm not Jordan Mathewson...," He shook his head, gathering his thoughts, "...and frankly...I'm not Seamus O'Doherty..." Eddie turned his head back at that, understanding how lost Seamus was.

"I'm sorry for making you look for someone who wasn't there." Seamus apologized again, it was he, now, who couldn't bare to look into the other's eyes. "I shouldn't be your concern, I promise I'll get my shit together." Eddie could hear the sincerity in his wavering voice. "You should focus on you." His eyes lifted to meet those of brown.

"You're eyes are starting to crack."

Eddie seemed surprised, he wasn't the only one who could see them. He turned his head away, going to stare into the mirror, but the fog had covered it, it just being a cloudy piece of glass. "I'm sorry." Seamus whispered before the room faded back to silence, such a needless sound. Eddie hung his head, his lips pursed, not knowing what to say, he had forgiven his friend on the inside, but he didn't know how to bring those words to the air.

Thus left the silence.

Seamus bit at his bottom lip, nodding his head at the fact that Eddie chose not to speak, believing he was not forgiven, only forgotten, only to be pushed aside like he had with the other, to be neglected until a force took over you, depression, anger, apathy. Seamus took in all three. He sucked in a breath as he stood up from his seat, his feet leading him to wherever his mind wanted, he wasn't even sure anymore.

He itched at the back of his neck, sadness weighing down his eyes as he made his way back to the exit, a hand pressed against the door before a single word made him remove it.

"Seamus."

He turned back around, surprised that Eddie had called out to him, he was expecting the silent treatment, the cold shoulder, the pungent taste of his own medicine to burn his throat and infect his stomach. He met those brown bulbs from far away, a crack seeming to be gone, Seamus was relieved by that. But when thinking of it, his new one began to pulsate.

Eddie was quiet for a moment, studying the man before him, comparing memroes of how he looked then to the reality of now. "Give Mathewson what he deserves."

The two smiled at each other before Seamus nodded, exiting the room, his feet following a trail made days before.

******

"Kevin MacFarlane."

Jordan said the name eerily as he blew a cloud of smoke into the room, Seamus betting that that was the flavor of his chapped lips, that addicting taste of tobacco and smoke getting stuck under his skin. "Young, dumb, and naive. The three clichés of anyone his age." Jordan swallowed, focusing on the flaming ring around the end of his cigarette.

"Young. It's true, he was just out of high school, freshman in college, still had his looks, his charm, his wit." Jordan listed, his breath smelling like that unbearable smoke. "He was...being introduced to what life really is, a disaster disguised as a masterpiece." Seamus dipped his head, his mind recalling evidence of that, his lips silently agreeing as they didn't open to object.

Jordan cleared his throat. "Usually the first of everything is good feeling. The first check signed, the first bag of groceries bought, the first bill paid, the first car owned...living life as an adult without a care in the world..." Seamus sighed, his mind reliving the good old days, the good old days that should've been then, living a good life with a beautiful wife, a smart daughter, a sister in law who was there, and a friend who consistently cared.

The good old days were before any of them.

Jordan sucked in another breath from his stick. "Then you learn that it's not all fun and games...," His tone turned serious, "you're out there in life alone, you have the ability to get hurt, the ability to rise or fall, the ability to forget." He blew out that puff. "Dumb." He listed, running his free hand through his brown, unbrushed hair. "Now it's...human nature to make mistakes, mistakes are what...keep you going or...hold you back...

"Sometimes you fix them...sometimes...they come and haunt you." Jordan's fingers twisted and turned, leaving a trail of ash on the floor, his cigarette oscillating slightly, the smoke appearing to tremble as it blended in with the air. He sniffed lightly, breathing it all in, that fresh scent of home, a vague smile creeping onto his pale face, a face that had grown colorless throughout the days.

"Mistakes could be labeled as...a number of things. Being it a person himself, what he believes, what he says, what he does, what he doesn't." Jordan's eyes traveled to a bank in his mind, a place Seamus could only see if he were to become the other, unless, until, Jordan was anticipating it. Seamus didn't deny it. He kept his tongue bitten down. "Or it could be a number of habits, one not so bothersome...one that could risk your safety...if not your life."

He wet his lips before placing that cigarette back to them, his addiction was getting worse, he had smoked twenty cigarettes within the past few days, it was as if he were tempting death to do its job. He slowly let the smoke out, his nose breathing it in, finding the scent intoxicating as Seamus held his breath, hating to be exposed to such a deadly force. Jordan's teeth raked over his bottom lip, it seemed to be that he had no skin left to pull off of it.

"Naive." He named, cleared his throat lightly, trying to keep the remains of smoke in his system before it blew out with his breaths. "Out of all, Kevin MacFarlane was naive." A flash of the man was displayed before Seamus' crystal eyes. "He was...on top of most things, if not all...his grades, his part time job, his social status...almost like the person I never was..."

The person he was forced to be.

Jayden Mathewson.

Jordan sighed with a bit of frustration, sitting himself up straighter in his seat, his hand trembling lightly, his cigarette shaking. "Kevin MacFarlane wasn't so perfect...I watched him, followed him, made sure to get every detail correct..." He cocked his jaw to the right. "He wasn't aware that the lock to his dorm room was broken, tenants of the past destroying it years back." He shook his head as he explained.

"Every night, he'd leave for his job at seven, arriving back at ten, 'locking' that door, thinking he was safe." Jordan chuckled lightly, that cheshire grin of his Seamus found a little off-putting. "Truth was, anyone could get in, anyone could get out, and I decided to do both." He sucked on that filter again, taking in that building patience of his demise.

"It was easier than I thought it would be, I knew for sure I'd be caught. Neighbors, campus cameras, security." He closed his eyes, biting at his lower lip, hiding a smile. "It was completely dark, completely empty, completely quite. Now that...that's what I call bliss..." He held that cigarette to his mouth again. "...bliss..." He whispered again, his eyes appearing tired.

For once, Seamus envied Jordan. Even the cruelest of people with the coldest of hearts could know and experience bliss. Even it being in the strangest of ways, the dark, the emptiness, the quiet, he still had bliss in some way, shape, and form. Seamus would've killed to feel bliss, killed to feel anything anymore, his feelings just turning to tumors in his mind. All he felt was pain, all he felt was suffering, and most of the time, nothing.

He felt...nothing. He was beginning to understand Moss, how one could be so emotionally stable, how one couldn't let their guilt, remorse, or empathy show, and the answer was that it didn't exist. You block it away, you keep it away, you scare it away until it's impossible to feel anymore, you're just a shell, a husk, something so empty, something so...simple...

Seamus would've killed to feel bliss.

Even if it were himself he had to kill.

"What did you do to Kevin MacFarlane?" Seamus' voice was dry and rough, he didn't recognize it anymore than Jordan, those devilish blue eyes glaring at Seamus in an unreadable way, in a way so unknown. He asked such a question, but the answer already presented itself in thin air, process of elimination made the connection so obvious.

Kevin MacFarlane was lust, the longing of sexual desires, the footsteps of Ellen Mathewson. History was repeating itself, Jordan was repeating himself much like Seamus' tedious job, case after case, criminal after criminal, sin after sin, sacrifice after sacrifice. The tortures they suffered then were what those seven men suffered now, delimbing, boiled alive, frozen like ones heart.

Ellen Mathewson met her fate as her body was burned while her heart still pumped, her eyes still blinked, her lungs breathed in that smoke of the fire, Jordan breathed in the smoke of his cigarette. It was easy to piece together.

Kevin MacFarlane was burned alive.

Jordan licked his lips, his top lip pink, his bottom burning and red. "I...I took him from his cell, and...tied him to a chair...and just like the rest, he cried, and yelled, and pleaded for his life..." He shook his head, Seamus hearing a low chortle from inside of the man's throat. "I savored the beauty in his eyes...the tears, the veins, the fear...I took it all in...it was so beautiful...

"...he collapsed into a hopeless mess, he wasn't listening to me, he never listened, he was living life as an oblivious coward and that panic he showed only proved it." He drank in another sip of from his cigarette. "He was...just so scared...afraid to act..." Jordan's words were beginning to confuse the blond seated in front of him. "So weak...so I taught him to be stronger...

"...I took away his senses until there wasn't a Kevin MacFarlane inside of that living dead corpse."

Seamus stared at the table as Jordan mashed his cigarette into it, his mind pounding as pieces were falling apart. His connections were breaking, his interpretations wrong, Kevin MacFarlane wasn't taken due to his sin of lust and yearns, he owned a sin, but one of a different reason, things unable to add up in his wrecked mind.

Kevin MacFarlane wasn't lust, which meant there was another body, another victim, another life Jordan took that he didn't admit to, that he played Seamus for a fool over. Kevin was something else, which left two bodies, Jordan was a killer of sixteen, his hands painted in even thicker blood, from red to crimson to black. Seamus felt himself shake, his control being lost as his train of thought hit the wall.

"Kevin..." Seamus shook his head, trying to process it all. "Kevin MacFarlane w...wasn't lust..." Seamus whispered under his hot breath, looking up to Jordan's stained eyes.

Jordan smiled lightly, enjoying the sight of a broken mind at work. "...You know...most people don't know that...there were actually eight deadly sins, the eighth being removed for...unknown reasons, perhaps seven was...more memorable." Jordan explained, Seamus left in a state of awe, awe and fear. "Kevin MacFarlane was not lust, but despond, to lose hope, confidence, and keep yourself in a place below water, keeping yourself drowned."

Seamus held his head in his hands, trying to work his way through such a mess, thinking of who the other victims were, what bodies were trapped in a tomb of no escape, what lives were stolen and sentenced to damnation before Hell. He ran his fingers through his long hair, wanting to rip it out trying to understand what Jordan knew and he didn't, what that question was exactly as his lips began to mouth the words, his tongue sending them to the air with his voice masking them.

"Who...who was lust...?"

Jordan cleared his throat, sitting back in his metal chair, the material causing an array of goosebumps to cover his back. He let out a chilled breath before his lips showed a smile, one that punctured Seamus' heart even before they opened to speak.

But once they did...Seamus' heart was more than punctured.

"...You remember your wife, don't you, detective...?"


	20. Ashes To Ashes

She stood there in her office, her back to him and the world around her, her brown hair tied back as her arms were busy at work, her clothes of the common, a dark blue shirt and jeans of nearly the same color, her bare feet tapping against the hardwood floor as she moved from this side to that, her arms constantly moving, her eyes constantly scanning, admiring. From a distance, he leaned himself against the doorway, shoulder and arm resting on the wood as he smiled, taking the sights in.

He first looked at the beauty of her, watching her personality spring to life, it only reminding him of why he had married such a woman. Her brown hair that flowing just past her small shoulders, slightly pudgy arms looking so lovely, her complexion simply divine. Her back so smooth, her her hips defined, her legs lanky, her feet small.

She returned to her desk, picking up another picture with her soft fingertips, her nails painted black, a color so dark, a color so light. She turned slightly to the side, unaware of the blue eyed locked on her, too caught up in her own little world to sense the feelings of another one. That's when he got to see her face, that unique face that caught his eye the first day stepped into each other's lives.

Such light, little lips that he had spoken to, caught himself staring at, kissed like his life depended on, and above all, fell in love with. Her perfect, rounded nose that he placed feathery kisses upon, her skin so silky and smooth. Her brown eyes always shining, such a glisten made his heart melt. Her delicate hands carried another photo as the floorboards beneath creaked while she made her way along. She hung another on the wall, a picture of a wedding, a picture she had taken, trying to see which ones were classified as better.

Seamus sighed lightly, in love with how dedicated Ashley was to her job, to see the light it brought to her eyes, to see the smile when her lips pulled apart, to see that amazing mind at work made his heart flutter. She was born to be a photographer, the passion she put into it was the passion she received, life treating her well. She always had a camera at hand or wrapped around her neck, and if not, she was sorting through the photos projected from her film.

She was a photographer for many things, weddings of all sorts, pictures of newborns with their parents, or just capturing her own life with the blink of an eye, the shutter of a camera. She was the best in her field, Seamus had convinced himself, her pictures just as beautiful as her soul, just as amazing as herself.

Ashley began to hum lightly, her voice drawing Seamus closer like a moth to flame, except it didn't burn, it simply soothed. Her back had returned to him again as he placed his chest against it, feeling her jolt lightly as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, her soon relaxing into his arms as he held her close to his beating heart. The good old days... He heard her giggle lightly as he kissed her temple, the scent of her being something sugary with a hint of coconut.

"Hey." He whispered to her, proceeding to kiss her cheek.

She blushed lightly, her cheeks a pale pink like her adorable lips. "Hey." She replied, taking her eyes off of her work as she focused on the bliss that was her husband's arms. Seamus sighed again, basking in the glory of their love, his eyes trailing from her graceful features to the photos on the wall, looking over and every one with a simple scan of the eyes.

They were of a wedding she had attended just a few nights back, Seamus had waited up late that night to hear all about it, just to have her fall asleep in his arms. Each picture was as gorgeous as the last, Ashley's talent able to roam free and express itself in the most mesmerizing of ways.

The one she had just placed up was of the bride and groom standing at the alter, the sun setting in the background and shining through the small gap between the two, the sky owning shades of red, orange, and yellow. The bride's eyes were close lightly as her husband's looked down upon her, his eyes not catching a single flaw.

Her blond hair was tied, woven, and pinned in interesting patterns, a few accessories added in to match the shine of her veil, a thin old thing thrown back to reveal such a pretty face. Her newlywed husband stood only a few inches above her, his skin dark and swarthy, his hair short combed to the side. The two never looked so happy.

Seamus' eyes traveled up to the left, another amazing shot catching his gaze. It was one from behind, the bride and groom side by side with that same sun set lighting the photo up. The back of his suit was clean and flat, his arm linked with the woman to his left. The stood at an approximate five foot five, her dress traditionally white and simple, no obnoxious gown, no ten yard trane, no layers upon layers to worry about.

She didn't need those to emphasize her beauty.

Seamus' eyes flicked from photo to photo, taken aback by each one, amazed that his wife was the one to capture those moments in time. His eyes fell to a last one, such a pulchritudinous sight that he couldn't help, but smile at. It was a photo of not the married ones themselves, but of his and her hands, the left placed on top of the left to show the meaning of their newly placed rings.

"These are really amazing." He whispered in her ear, complimenting her work as he took another breath of her in to relax his lungs.

She sighed lightly, he could feel it blow past his bare arms. "I hope so." She commented, her voice sweet like honey, something that kept him going through the toughest of days. "Most of them turned out to be blurry or of nothing worth capturing, just a waste of film." She chuckled softly.

He hummed quietly at that, nuzzling his head against her shoulder. "Well, I think you might've had one too many glasses of wine that night." He joked, laughing at his own tease.

"Excuse me." Ashley replied with mock insult, a giggle hidden with her words. "It was champaign, not wine." She corrected him, their eyes locking once they caught the same gaze, both thinking back to their first meeting on that bus years ago, and remembering why they had fallen in love with each other. Aside from all of the reasons they could give of their flaws, their strengths, their passion, and beauties, it still remained a mystery.

"That's all you're going to change?" He snickered as she crinkled her nose at him, her lips fighting a smile as he held her a bit closer, closing his eyes as he cooed at how soft his skin felt against hers. He sighed again, his breath warm and comforting, himself as a whole feeling the safest he ever had.

"I love you."

He waited a moment, but didn't receive a response, her voice would usually follow with those same three words, a giggle, and a kiss on his cheek. But silence was all that followed. He opened his full blue eyes that were now filled with fear, perhaps a wondrous sight to some. He expected to meet the light blue walls painted walls of Ashley's office, but he was simply met the envisions of a place where men came to die.

The walls were damp, dusty, and dark, blotches of mold stained the walls as well as a putrid stench that made Seamus hold back a gag. His heart began to race as he pulled away from what he believed to be his wife, his arms opening to simply find nothing. There was no trace of her ever being there, her kisses drying, her scent fading, her lack of warmth turning his skin cold.

He looked around, the place unfamiliar in all aspects and scaring him to his core, tears entering his eyes as his happy little world had been torn apart. All of the memories he owned were coated with fear, he let a voice get inside of his head and infect everything like a disease. Shadows were forming in front of his eyes, starting to eat away at what remained of his eyes, seeping into the cracks and pillaging his mind.

"Ashley...? He asked out of desperation, knowing she couldn't call back to him, her voice now would be unrecognizable to the ears. He wiped away at the tears in his eyes, never feeling so lost in his life, lost in a memory of his own cracking mind.

"Daddy?"

Stefani's voice echoed off of the walls, his head snapping to the side to see her small body standing in a doorway nearby. Her eyes were still that same luscious brown, but she wore the eyes of her mother, those astonishing ones that owned just a hint of a glint. "Daddy? What's wrong?" She asked, her small voice setting his heart ablaze, such an innocent person she was, being introduced to such hell at the age of seven.

"What's wrong...?"

He only stared at her with tears in his eyes, his world crumbling to the ground.

"Daddy...?"

 

 

"...You remember your wife, don't you detective...?"

The voice didn't nearly affect him as much as the words, one covered by the other, one driving into his mind and destroying the happiness it once possessed and the scraps it tried to hold onto. The other lashed out at his dying heart, turning off the dimming light, putting it out of its misery as Seamus had much more to go through. His eyes began to fill with tears, he couldn't control himself anymore, his world being ripped at every seam and thrown back down in front of him.

His hands became shaky as he placed more of the pieces together of his case, the puzzle making an arrow pointed at himself, showing who the true victim was. His head began to beat again, more than his heart ever did, his mind swelling with a feeling so unknown, and so powerful. He had wanted to find his wife for nearly a month, leaving not a single stone unturned, but having such a truth laid on him all at once made his legs break from underneath of him.

"No..." Seamus whispered, shaking his head, his teeth biting down on his tongue as his vulnerability became stronger. "No, no...no, no..." He tried to convince himself otherwise, this wasn't the truth, mind games, he's playing mind games...please tell me this isn't real...

No, Ashley's alive, he's just using her to weaken you, you know better than to fall for his bitter, tasteless words...

...then why do I...

He fought himself as his bones began to shake, fear flooding his system like blood, it burning everything away everytime he took a breath, oxygen feeding the fire, pain feeding the fire. He buried his head in his hands, refusing to accept the words shoved down his crammed throat filled with held back sobs and bile. He didn't kill her, she's alive, she's alive...

...if she were...why did he want to talk to you...you and only you...

...but there's something of you, detective...something I need to set right...

...in you...is me...

"No, no...no..." Seamus mumbled under his breath, his breath that tasted like the smoke in the air, the smoke of the air. "No...no, you...you didn't...you didn't...no, no...no..." Seamus refused, his toes curling in his boots, his frustration boiling down to pure anger and rage, his mind sunken low in that deep, dark depression, and the rest of him went numb.

Jordan slowly shook his head, enjoying the sight before him of Seamus breaking down just to become ashes to ashes on the floor. "I thought you weren't one to deny the truth, detective." Jordan pointed out, a slight 'tsk' bouncing off of his tongue. "But it seems that you have deceived me as well." He shook his head as Seamus' immunity had withered, leaving him helpless against such a terrible world, such a terrible man, such terrible words.

"You always had trouble accepting the truth..."

"It's not!" Seamus yelled in response, his voice wavering, but sounding strong compared to the rest of him. "It's not the truth! It's not!" He fought back, his head aching from temple to temple, he could no longer think or speak for himself, that darker side to him had taken over, choking him to keep him silent.

He could feel Eddie's eyes on him from behind that glass.

"If you don't believe that as the truth, why should you trust in anything I've said?" Jordan proved a point, resuming his role as a liar and swindler, being that terrible man all thought of him to be, being that killer, that taker of lives, that monster from hell only meant to end the world.

He smiled.

He looked down at his watch.

"Maybe James Wilson, Daniel Gidlow, Dexter Manning...," his voice trailed off, "...maybe they aren't truly dead, perhaps...perhaps their blood doesn't stain my hands." Jordan proposed, leading himself down Seamus' trail of confusion, doubt, with a shower of infidelity. "Maybe they're out living pure lives and I'm just wasting your time.

"Maybe your wife's still out there." Jordan taunted, Seamus' heart being threatened with a knife. "Or maybe...maybe you were the one to kill her..." Seamus' heart tightened his in chest at that, in a way, that was the truth, he was technically one to kill his wife by not protecting her as an officer, and as a husband. His heart grew sensitive to every breath he took after that.

"...maybe I was..." He brought his spiel back to the matter at hand, Seamus couldn't stand to see the silhouette of his wife in Jordan's eyes. "...and I just watched you run in circles after her..."

Seamus shook his head, running his fingers through his blond hair that was beginning to grow a bit darker, parts yellow, parts a light brown, some parts fading to gray. "No, no, no...no..." He muttered again, finding there to be a hole in his shield, a hole in his heart.

"That single syllable won't change the truth, detective." Jordan mocked, his right hand twitching slightly to show who had the upper hand. "In fact...do you even know the truth?" He wondered, the answer already floating about in his mind, he just wanted to hear it in Seamus' dull voice, to admit defeat once again, altogether.

Seamus kept his lips sealed, biting at the bottom until he felt blood, it trickling out onto his tongue, such a taste he had gotten used to, the true taste of pain. "The truth of what really happened to your wife?" Jordan rephrased, keeping Ashley dangling in front of Seamus in a noose. Seamus looked away, worry making him sweat, Eddie's eyes from behind that glass burning holes into the back of his head.

To reveal such a hurt mind.

"You should remember the day more than I..." Jordan began, Seamus feeling his stomach set itself on fire. "...it was...January 3rd?" Jordan rhetorically asked as Seamus stiffened him his seat, his spine freezing by the cold voice that spoke of that day without a tone in his voice. Seamus looked away to the floor, those brown eyes on him turning sympathetic, his own closing to lock down the tears. January 3rd was the day it had all happened. January 4th was day one. "That sounds about right...

"I watcher her, I watched the both of you, for quite some time." Jordan explained, Seamus' sense of privacy and solitude torn to down like a curtain, his inside of him shown fully to the outside world, he felt exposed and raw, feelings that ate away at him like rats. "Why...do you call her by that nickname?" The brunet asked. "'Ashley' is much more beautiful...

"In fact...your wife entirely was beautiful...I couldn't help, but look..." Seamus' hand formed fists again, the words spoken about his wife made it seem as if she were just a talking body, her form and figure got her by, not the attributes that caught Seamus' eye. "Her hair, her eyes, her lips, her voice...," his eyebrows raised when looking at Seamus, "...I bet you loved that body most of all..."

"Don't you dare talk about her that way..." Seamus mumbled under his breath, his blue eyes glaring up at the other, on the near edge of crying tears of his own blood.

"Because the other way is any better?" The silence covered the room yet again, Seamus afraid of where Jordan's words were leading, he spoke of her as a beautiful body and face gone to waste. The other way was of her death, words left unspoken for now, but soon they'd be awakened from their graves.

Jordan took a small breath in. "It was just a simple run for groceries, she told you she'd be back with a kiss on your lips." A retention sprung to life in Seamus' bruised mind, one of the few good memories he had left. It was midday, the temperature still cold as melting snow remained on the ground, but the sun was shining down to spread a little warmth.

Stefani was in her room, playing with the dolls she had received from Christmas, what another great one it had been. He himself was seated at the kitchen island, a small mug of coffee next to him as he read over the file for a new case he had been given, a case he had given up the very next day. He had heard her soft footsteps enter the kitchen, her lips smiling as she saw him, his copying the action.

She spoke of where she was off to and when she'd most likely be back, all the while placing on her boots by the door, one of Seamus' jackets, her black purse hung over her shoulder and her car keys in her hand. She departed with a soft kiss on his pink lips, hers tasting like sweet cinnamon sugar. They said their goodbye's and the sappy 'I love you's' as she closed the front door, Seamus awaiting to see her again.

But then an hour passed.

Then two.

Then three.

He had called her cell, hoping to hear her velvet voice explain the situation, she needed to head somewhere else, she was having car trouble, there was traffic on a Sunday afternoon. But when he called, only her voicemail answered, that same repeated message greeting him at the end of the line. He sighed, leaving it be.

A fourth hour passed.

A fifth.

His phone rang by then, his job was the last number he had expected to see flash on his screen. He placed it to his ear, Eddie's scared voice speaking frantically at him, but with time, Seamus got the message. There had been a crime scene down at the grocery store Ashley was headed to, someone had reported an abandoned vehicle still running in the lot, driver's side door open with no owner in sight.

"Seamus...it's Ashley's..."

Seamus had no choice, but to take Stefani with him as he drove down to the scene, Stefani staying quiet all the while as Seamus prevented tears from exiting his eyes. He had made it there within a fifteen minute drive, the crime scene tape catching his eyes from a distance, then that abandoned, gray car that was all too familiar to him.

It took him three minutes to fully arrive at the scene.

It took two to have the case explained to him.

It took one to have Eddie set Seamus down.

It didn't take much long after that before Seamus lost it, Stefani reluctantly seeing her father cry from a distance.

It took twenty eight days for Seamus to lose all hope.

Here's to twenty nine.

Why do I even bother to count...

"You must feel heartbroken that she lied to you..." Jordan taunted the detective, his voice dry and rough, it scraping against and scarring Seamus' skin. "She's been gone for...twenty eight days now...?" Seamus sucked in a cold breath through clenched teeth. "She was oblivious to me, I was...simply a mist and she just...disappeared."

Seamus' head sunk lower into his hands, into his lap, hating to live in the past, but that was all he could do. The memories of Ashley only made her haunt Seamus' mind, leaving kisses on his forehead that only made him cry himself to sleep. If only he could hold her, if only he could talk to her, if only he could get to feel her soft hair again, her comforting presence again, if only he could smell her scent again, the smell of home.

Smoke.

The smell of home.

Jordan kept quiet, staring up at that two way mirror on the far side of the room. He could sense that light brown eyes taking a peek in, he smiled snidely at that, wanting to give those eyes a show. "I can't imagine the pain it gave you...to realize that important person in your life is gone. Even harder to live with the constant contemplation of their state." Jordan continued, hammering nail after nail into Seamus' coffin.

"I know you do." Jordan paused. "Dead? Alive? Dead? Alive?"

Jordan exhaled loudly, letting out a breath that should've been a puff of smoke. "What was it like to...tell your daughter?" Jordan pushed the boundaries a bit further, seeing how far they could bend before they broke. "It's easier to explain death...but this?" This. This. This terrible hell of having my wife stolen away and held against her will, this agonizing reality of living day to day alone, this painful life that I'm raising my daughter in. This.

This.

"And the questions, how? When? Why? Who?" Jordan listed, his face smug and himself entertained. "And your blunt answers of I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I. Don't. Know." His voice turned bitter, his eyes narrowing in on Seamus', Seamus could barely stand the stare. Fear displayed itself across his eyes, the sight to Jordan as amazing as a sky full of stars.

"Trying to explain to her who I was, calling me 'him'." Jordan noted, his ears picking up that word from just the other room, Seamus having the tendency of thinking aloud, his mind too full, yet too empty to process anything anymore. "Your case...her case...his case..." He paused, licking at his reddened lips, his habit, his addiction growing worse.

"Calling me the name of the devil..."

"Because you are him!" Seamus hastily yelled, his sudden outburst causing a slight jolt from Jordan. ?You are! You're a fucking monster!" He screamed, the veins in his eyes growing thicker, the bags underneath of them darkening, sleep as much of a stranger as he was to himself. Jordan shared that pain.

Jordan slowly shook his head, the calm action easing Seamus' stressed nerves. "I'm not the devil, detective." Jordan corrected, his voice returning to that condescending timbre Seamus couldn't stand. "I'm merely just a sin myself." Seamus scowled at that other. "Just like your wife..." Jordan chuckled lightly, remembering back to times he once spent with her, not ones of love, devotion, and irresistibility, but mainly the moments leading up her unspeakable demise.

"How innocent she tried to act with her redundant begs, her pleas, her cries for help of any sort or just a run on of tears." Seamus rubbed at this eyes at that, he hated seeing his wife upset, always holding her close as she needed to cry, soothing her in a way she described as 'peaceful'. He couldn't bare the image of her crying without his arms. "Your name was all she could mumble, pleading for you to save her."

Seamus held his breath, trying to keep his sobs back, crying wouldn't bring Ashley back, it would only cause a bigger hole to form in the center of Seamus' dead heart. "God...Ashley..." He whispered, resting his head against his fist, unable to look into Jordan's eyes studying him, unable to look back into the eyes behind that glass for help.

Jordan lowered his head, hiding a signs of a smile coming on. "Her body was so weak when I tied her to that chair...you remember that body well, don't you...?" Jordan wondered, bringing the painful conversation back to the topic that forced the vulnerability within Seamus to take over. "When you held it...touched it...kissed it with those filthy lips..."

His teeth raked over his bottom lip.

"Actions...not of your own...that desire in you only awakened her selfish needs, her selfish self." Jordan carried on, weakening Seamus by placing the weight of the world on his shoulders, the weight of his wife's dead body only piled on top. "She let you feel pleasure just to keep her sin at ease. She blinded you...all she wanted was the sex..."

Seamus shook his head, feigning stability. "That's not true...that's not true..." He weakly fought back, still avoiding those beckoning, blue eyes.

Jordan lightly smiled, feeling those hidden, brown eyes grow mean. "What? Afraid of a voice getting into your head?" He ridiculed, Seamus' brain beginning to be sliced down the middle, the blood bathing his skin from the underside. "Really, you should let it happen. You get used to it." Seamus looked up at that at the creature seated before him. "You're never lonely."

Silence.

Jordan took in a small gasp, holding for a moment before letting out with a few of his words. "Let me ask you, detective...," he licked his lips, "did it feel good?" He questioned, Seamus just giving the other a stern stare with those cold, expired eyes. "The sex?" Jordan specified, Seamus hands shaking again. "Did it feel good to...hold her body close to yours?" He asked, his voice growing low and husky, a gruff and seductive tone overlapping.

"Huh?" Jordan asked, his eyes tantalizing. "Did it feel good to whisper her name? Did it feel good to feel her breath mix with yours, or feel her weight moving above your own?" The shaking crossed to Seamus' thighs, fear beginning such trembling within the man, but anger soon laced it. "How did it feel to...touch her skin as your...hands traveled down, down...?

"To feel her hair...her hips...her breasts...hm?" Seamus' frustration caused a lump to clog his throat. "To feel that sweet release, to feel that heaven for a brief second?" Shadows were swarming over Seamus' eyes. "To...abuse that method of procreation for her own years...she wasn't thinking of you, or Stefani, or..." He stopped abruptly, the sudden quiet catching Seamus' unwanted attention.

"Or...that life that...never got the chance to live..."

Those words made Seamus' hearing fade momentarily, his mind discombobulated and hurting, his senses fading in and out like an old television screen losing and gaining signal. It was difficult for him to think, his mind barricaded and old, just a single thought would make it pound for hours. His eyes could barely see, his voice could barely speak, his mind couldn't think, it could only do as that weakness said, as that darkness said.

"W...what?"

Jordan cocked his head to the side, twisting his wrist lightly, the screen of his watch reflecting the lights above, a shine casting over Jordan's eyes. "She manipulated you into...satisfying her craves...," he swallowed quietly, "...then carried that guilt around for...," he took a breath, "...five weeks, she guessed...she was headed to the doctor the next day to make sure."

Seamus' heart fell in his chest, the last of his heartstrings sliced at those final words. It tumbled and ached on its way down, bumping into every other sensitive organ and landing with a splash into his drying blood stream. "No..." He whispered, connecting two and two together, staring at Jordan in nonbelief. "No, no...no, no, no...no..." His voice was beginning to get frail, his throat closing up as the truth was hard to swallow.

Jordan smiled.

"She didn't tell you she was pregnant, did she...?"

Seamus couldn't refrain himself for much longer, tears falling down his pale cheeks in an instant as his legs grew weak. He stared at the man before him in utmost disgust, the killer of his wife, the killer of his unborn child. He couldn't stand to be in the same room as him, it would nearly be the death of him as oxygen was scarce, his head feeling a little too light as his heart clunked to his feet.

"No!" Seamus screamed, rubbing at his eyes harshly. "No! No, no! No! No!" He shouted again and again, feeling that depression sprinkle on top of him like a first snowfall. But Seamus was used to the cold. "No...you fucking monster! No! You...no! No! No!" He stood up from his chair haphazardly, nearly knocking it over in the process, his legs stumbling, himself clumsy, unable to think straight.

He muttered that same word over and over, not wanting to believe in such horror, but such horror was his life, a book written in blood and just waiting to be burned. His lungs singed everytime he took a breath as his hand fumbled for the doorknob, pushing the second door open and slamming it behind him. His crying grew heavier although he was out of that airless room, he owned no life left in him, he was simply just a bag of bones with thin blood and decaying organs.

"Seamus...Seamus, I..." He heard Eddie's voice tried to talk with him, Seamus now seeing those eyes on the other side of that glass. "Just...try to calm down...Seamus...Sea?"

Seamus paced furiously, deaf to Eddie's words, running his hands through his hair as he tugged on it, his lungs close to being coughed up along with the contents of his stomach. "God...oh, god, oh god..." Seamus whispered to himself as he placed his back to the wall, sliding down slowly until he was seated on the ground, head in his hands resting on his knees.

"He...he-he ki-killed A-Ashley..." Seamus muttered, Eddie leisurely kneeling down next to his friend with caution. "He...he...he-he kill...killed her..." He sobbed feeling guilt float above his head as a storm cloud, his body penetrated by the lightning. "Oh god...I-I-I'm s-so sor-sorry..." He stuttered, suffering from a panic attack, his body felt incredibly small in a world so malignant.

"Seamus, Seamus...shh, shh, try to breathe, Seamus, try to breathe." Eddie attempted to soothe as he wrapped his friend him his arms, holding him close to protect him from the fears his life contained. "Just...just try to breaths, Sea...just try..." He began to cry himself, seeing his friend in such a state tore his heart from his chest, to think he ever hurt him...

"H...he killed her..." Seamus muttered into his friend's ear, his tears bleeding onto Eddie's white shirt. "He k...killed her...a...and he...he kill...killed my b-b-baby..." He sobbed a little harder, holding onto Eddie with all of his enfeebling strength, his tears leaving stains on the shoulder of Eddie's shirt. "He killed my baby..." He muttered clearly, sending another wave of tears to drown him.

"I'm so sorry, Seamus..." Eddie mumbled, taking in a breath to ease himself, his teary eyes glancing up at the ceiling. "I'm so sorry..."

All sound soon faded, leaving Seamus to cry in silence, his ears aching and blocked by the pain crowding his system. He was locked in the dark, his voice couldn't echo off of the walls, he couldn't hear his tears fall onto the floor along with his body as he collapsed in pain. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, there was no tunnel at all, just a room to be locked in when reality becomes as torturous as death.

His wife was murdered.

His unborn had child died.

He was in more pain than the both.

I'm so sorry.

It's all he could be.

*********

As time passed by, Seamus learned that silence was a sound.

He sat there again in that interrogation room, no matter how much time he spent away from there, he kept crawling back, he still felt the pain lingering from moments before, he still needed to undergo pain in order to finish what he started. He figured it at as an appropriate punishment for abusing all those around him, to be the one to be abused.

It was nearly suicide in some aspects, but an eye for an eye was the deed. Seamus was tired, he was frail, he was withering, wasting, damn near dead. His heart had been removed, his mind had been belittled, his confidence had been shot down, and his life had been burned to leave scar tissue. All he had suffered, all he had lost, all he had cried, had screamed, had spoken was enough to make him implode, and he was ready.

He had spent hours away from that room, hours crying into Eddie's shoulder, hours realizing the reality that would follow him home and hang over his head until he lain on his death bed. Those hours help, but didn't, he found the determination to step back into that room, but beyond that, he was a hollow soul. He owned nothing anymore, even the things that still existed were soon to be gone, nothing lasts forever.

Not even life itself.

His wife had been missing for nearly a month, that was a tumor on his heart that got worse as days went by, as minutes ticked away, as seconds flew past his mind without a second thought. It wasn't until then when the tumor spread, that truth of her death hurting him far worse than he had ever imagined, he could barely feel the pain in his nightmares, and he could barely feel the pain now, it was too great.

Not only had the life of his wife been lost, but the innocence of another was taken along with her own with and without intention. Ashley had been five weeks pregnant, their family was going to be growing yet again, Stefani having a baby brother or sister, Seamus being a father to another child. But...his dream had been nipped in the bud, ending his slight sliver of joy before he even knew it was there.

And Stefani...now that he knew the truth, he couldn't hide it from Stefani, he was a terrible liar, and she saw through his weak facade the first day he threw it on. How would he explain to her that her mother wouldn't be coming back? That the evil had one? It would destroy her childhood, her outlook on life, she'd grow up from a troubled family and end up the same way, a future Seamus feared.

His own included.

As soon as this case was over, he'd have to bask in the truth of his life for two weeks, two weeks of absolute silence to fill his life, to fill his lungs, to fill his dreams as he didn't sleep. He'd have nothing to come back to, but a vat of depression to sink in, just wondering when he'd truly snap, and end things for good. He didn't have anything, his no longer beat in his chest, nothing was real, but everything was very real.

The back of his head pounded again as wiped at dried tears on his eyes, remembering that sudden determination to pour into his veins, and then finding himself back in that interrogation room against and for his will. Eddie's words echoed in his head, he didn't recall to when he had said them, but he could fell their promise holding up as those brown eyes were back behind that glass.

If you go back in there, I'll be right there behind you, I'm with you until the end, Sea...I will...

He could feel the heat of the room, but none had made its way to his body, goosebumps still trailing over his shivering self. His eyes were dead as they stared ahead, both looking glazed over and blind. Sweat was still creating a shine on the detective's forehead, his hands still shaking and palms clammy, chest still empty as the wind whistled through him.

His blue eyes locked on the other man in a deadly stare, the strain in his eyes creating a migraine, but he blocked out the physical pain with the emotional. He observed everything of the brunet, his hair needing to be cut, his face needing to be shaved, his eyes needing to close if only for a night. His nails beginning to grow back, his skin growing paler, his eyes now a spider web of cracks and cuts, all shining in the light.

His hand was still as he placed a cigarette to his lips, his tongue tasting that sweet, sweet smoke before blowing it out for the world to take in. His eyes mirrored the other's, simply staring at the other without a sound, even their light breaths seemed to own no sound, if they were even taking breaths. The two just glared at one another, daring each other with looks of threat to say something.

As time passed by, Seamus learned that silence was a sound.

"How do you feel?" Seamus was the first to speak after seconds that built up to ten minutes passes by, ten minutes of sitting there in silence, each having the nerve, yet the patience to talk. "Do you feel proud?" He asked, his voice decibels away from passing as unheard, his mind still recovering from the blows taken hours ago.

She didn't tell you she was pregnant...did she...?

Seamus shook his head as Jordan placed his lips on that filter again, their blue eyes seeing the pain in one anothers, from the beginning of the case to the near end, Seamus owned more. More gray in his hair, more cracks in the eyes, more mystery in his voice that transformed him into a stranger. "You destroyed my life and so many others..., his voice felt dry and rough, "...and for what? To prove a point only few understand?"

Seamus paused, taking in a breath of the smoke, tasting what Jordan called home, what Jordan called life. He craved another, taking in another. "You're like a parasite, Jordan." Seamus connected, Jordan seeming amused at the simile as the corners of his lips curled slightly. "No one knows you're there until you make yourself known, but by then it's too late." He ran his tongue over the backs of his top teeth.

"You attack everything else first...the organs...the senses..ones health..." Tears clouded his poor vision again, even through his glasses, he couldn't see. "And...then you attack the mind, pretending you comprehend its mystery." His head began to pound a bit harder, it traveling from the back to both of the sides. "You trick others to let you in, playing nice...why? Why?"

Jordan didn't answer, simply staring into those crackled eyes, filling them with the smoke from his cigarette, the smoke from his mouth. "Because they deserved it, Detective O'Doherty..." Seamus mimicked, jeering at the other. "...three fucking, meaningless words, they deserved it..." He shook his head at that, finding it all preposterous.

"You know what, you should have chosen me as one of your victims...because I'd rather be part if your past than learn about it." He'd rather be dead than alive, he'd rather be free than stuck taking in that pain. But that pain never felt so good... "But no...," Seamus shook his head, "...I was different in your eyes, I was you, and you didn't kill me because you were scared to.

"There was something in me you needed to set right, that's complete bullshit." His tone grew harsh, down to the point of unsettling, Jordan sitting straighter in his seat. "You're nothing, but me, you just thrive on that pain from yourself, from others." He finally admitted it, he lived for that pain, taking in all he could just to feel okay.

Finding his own flaws and calling them out in the other...

"So you took James Wilson. You took Aron Long. You took Daniel Gidlow, Max Gonzales, even your own fucking parents...to feel a sense of purpose in life..." His voice faded momentarily, the sound of silence flooding the room like a tidal wave. "Who are you to play God?"

Jordan blew out another breath of smoke, staring at the other with those wondrous, yet terrifying eyes, those lips itching to speak, but remained quiet for a moment longer, seeing how bleak the silence could grow. "Who are you to be a detective?" Jordan pushed back, his mind recalling the excuse Seamus used, but deep within himself, he knew the truth.

"You can pin it on your past as much as you'd like. I can blame whoever I want for myself now, but there is no reason if you think hard about it." He licked his lips, the exposed flesh sizzling with the burn of saliva, a burn worse than the cigarette between his fingers. "There is no reason as to why you are and why I am." Seamus annoyance grew greater in his chest. "We just...are..."

"You're going to use that as an excuse?" Seamus taunted, his voice still finding itself since the screams and cries of before, the begs for Ashley, the curses of Jordan's name, the apologies to his child he never got to meet. He swallowed oddly, his throat soar. "You kill...just because...?" He scoffed, jumping to conclusions as Jordan always did, but secretly took his time.

"I do it with purpose-"

"No...," Seamus interrupted, Jordan's eyes growing darker to a shade of midnight Seamus hadn't seen before, "...you do it for purpose.

"You're scared of becoming no one in this world, so you kill to be someone." A glint appeared in Jordan's eyes, it being the deep color of crimson, Seamus was sure. "You want attention, you want recognition, you want your work to be studied, to be known and remembered, so it won't die when you're dead." Seamus' tone grew serious, Jordan letting out another cloud from his cigarette, Seamus leaning in a little more just to taste it.

"Your parents, your friends, your brother, it's all just an excuse." A spark of hurt flashed across his eyes, a spark of innocence resurfacing in that monster of a man. "The neglect, the abuse, the incest and rape." Another spark. "You just want to be remembered because no one remembers a ghost."

Jordan tapped the top of his cigarette lightly, a storm of fire and ash decorating the blue floor. "You're right, detective." Jordan snidely commented, his tone sarcastic and rude, his eyes watching flakes of his stick float to the floor. "I just want to be remembered, remembered for something, if anything..." He smiled slyly, simply just saying what Seamus did and didn't want to hear.

"That's why the deaths are so...elaborate...the victims are so ordinary because I want to be feared." He placed his cigarette back between his pointer and middle fingers, his eyes traveling up to Seamus' clothed chest, to his thick neck, to the scruff growing on his face, to those broken, sad eyes. "I want to be remembered by them, by the people." He paused, licking his lip again.

"By you.

"And those co called murders were the only way." Seamus' eyebrows dipped, his aggravation growing higher, only the smallest of things used to set him off, but now it was the biggest, the baddest, the beast occupying the chair on the other side of that metal table, and every other God damned thing. "So I dismembered them, I broke their bones, I fed them the inedible."

Jordan cocked his head to the side, his eyes looking down to that white roll of paper in his lanky hand. "I tied their pretty, little bodies to a chair and told them how beautiful they were." Seamus began to shake again, Jordan was no longer talking about his victims as a group, he had singled one away, the one that stole Seamus' heart. "I made them cry...I watched them cry...I tried to tell them not to, and it'd all be okay in a short while..."

Seamus clenched his teeth, tasting the slight taste of blood on his teeth. "I smelled her hair...," Jordan continued, biting the inside of his mouth, "...I kissed her cheek...I told her she was pretty..." He shook his head as he chuckled lightly. "I told her it was a shame that her husband didn't save her..." Tears of anguish began to stain Seamus' eyes again, another crack forming on his pupil, he could barely see.

"...She paid for her sin..."

"Stop it..." Seamus warned.

"I burned her body..."

"Stop..."

"...with fire and brimstone..."

"Stop it!"

"...and watched that baby burn..."

"You motherfu-" Seamus screamed out in pain as Jordan pressed his cigarette into Seamus' hand, leaving a scar to last. Jordan pulled the cigarette away slowly, proceeding to put the rest of the flame out on the tabletop. The trigger of the gun had been pulled within Seamus, and he was the bullet to do the damage, to seek his pound of rotting flesh.

His brawny hands reached to underneath of the table, lifting to the side and throwing it, a loud clamber heard as the metal collided with the floor, the collection of cigarette making a home with the ash in the floor as well as the papers that went along with the case. Without a second thought, Seamus landed a fist onto Jordan's face, causing the brunet to fall out of his seat.

Seamus took the back of the chair in his hand, swinging it over his head, aimed for Jordan's back. Bit before he had the chance, he felt a sharp pain in his leg, Jordan kicking him with all of his might, causing Seamus to fall to the ground. The blond grabbed Jordan roughly by the leg, pulling him closer to him as his other hand pulled at the man's short hair.

"You fucking bastard!" Seamus screamed before throwing Jordan's head into the floor, doing it again and again, not even phased by the sudden pooling of blood. Jordan threw his hand back, piercing Seamus' with his short nails, having a struggle of pulling Seamus' hand off of him, only to have Jordan bite the detective's hand.

Seamus yelled on agony, pilling his hand away as Jordan had broken the skin, it earning Jordan an attack as he leapt at the other, his fist meeting the other's cheek, his glasses flying off. Jordan straddled Seamus' waist, clawing and scratching at his face, sighing as blood was beginning to coat the underside of his fingernails. Seamus attempted to push the other off of him, but Jordan only forced more weight onto the detective.

"Don't you like it, detective?" Jordan shouted at the other, pressing his rear against the detective's waist and below. "Doesn't it feel like before, fucking your little slut?" Jordan egged the other on, Seamus growling lowly as he grabbed the other's forearms, throwing him back against the wall.

"You fucker!" Seamus yelled, blood trickling down his hand and his reddened cheeks as he held Jordan against the floor with his hand around his neck. He squeezed tighter, Jordan groaning in pain, but Seamus knew he was loving every minute of it. He punched the other in the face, his face turning red from lack of oxygen, but he still continued to smile.

Seamus punched again and again, taking his rage out on the man who had caused it, the man who had remained unknown for so long, the man known as him. He punched harder and harder, Jordan's face becoming blood, it was all Seamus could see, all he could smell, all he could...taste... Jordan tried to lift his arms up in defense, but Seamus pinned them above him, leaving the other man defenseless.

Just like James Wilson. Just like Aleksandr Marchant. Just like Dan Gidlow, Dexter Manning, Joe Esten, Spencer Lovell, and Kevin MacFarlane. Just like Ashley O'Doherty, Jordan's true shield, Seamus' true weakness. He just wanted to be free from the pain much like they did, much like her. She was a body unable to be put to rest as she was off of the world's radar, in a place unknown.

He just wanted to see her, now matter her stare, one last time.

He wanted to see his wife.

One. Last. Time.

"Where is she?!?" Seamus screamed, punching Jordan another time as he didn't answer. "Where the fuck is she?!?" Jordan only spit his own blood at the other, Seamus' fist colliding with Jordan's skin again and again, aiming for his face, his stomach, his sides, and chest, a collection of bruises was sure to form.

"Where is she?!? Where is she?!? Where is she?!?" Seamus yelled again and again, his right hand slathered with Jordan's blood. Seamus took a moment to breathe as Jordan began to choke, blood trailing out of his mouth and onto the floor, a bruise forming beneath his left eye, his lip and nose cut, and his stomach near vomiting.

Seamus released the grip of his hand somewhat, giving Jordan a chance to breathe before lifting him up with the collar of his shirt and slamming his weak body against the wall, Eddie's eyes allowing all to happen. "Where the fuck is she, you bastard?" Seamus whispered, his mind throbbing as Jordan ignored the words yet again. Seamus pulled at the man's brown hair and hit his head against the wall again, causing the man to groan in pain.

"Where...is she?" Seamus asked a final time before Jordan coughed, taking in a small breath and smiling, looking right into Seamus' eyes as his smile grew, his teeth blood red.

"You're...only wasting your time...detective..." Jordan slowly and quietly spoke, his body shivering from the pain, yet also the fear. Those words penetrated Seamus' anger again, but they also triggered that mind of an officer to go to work.

You're only wasting your time...

...time...

Seamus let go of Jordan's hair and hastily grabbed at the man's right arm, aiming the wrist towards himself, Jordan trying to focus on breathing, his entire body sore. Seamus' eyes observed Jordan's watch frantically, hoping it would show some sort of sign. What caught his eyes first was the crack across the top, he hadn't been the one to put it there, although their scuffle was strong.

He then looked at the two hands, they weren't moving, in fact, it looked as if they hadn't moved in an eternity, it clicking in Seamus' mind that the watch was broken all along, Jordan just wearing a broken watch. But he looked at it constantly, he smiled down at the time...because the time was always the same, the hour, the same minute, Seamus looking to see what hour, what minute.

1:32

The watch was stuck on 1:32.

Where had Seamus heard that number before...?

...a fire was set ablaze at the house of 132 Melbourne Drive, the home of married couple Ellen and Adam Mathewson and their son, 'Jayden'...

Seamus dropped Jordan's wrist as he thought, the action causing great pain to surge throughout Jordan as he lain there in true pain, not of the air, not of what others gave him, but pain of consequences and choice. Seamus' mind scrambled for answers, things moving too fast, his mind confused, but solving the case piece by piece. 132 Melbourne Drive was Jordan's childhood home, it also being the crime scene for the 2010 murders...

...and the 2016...

...they said the house went up in flames...they never said it burned down...

Seamus caught a breath in his throat, standing up immediately from his crouched position, taking a final, long stare at the man who had caused him such misery. He turned away swiftly, leaving the man bleeding and bruised on the dirty floor, walking away from the nightmare in his life, walking towards another.

He entered the second room, Eddie staring at his friend in shock, Seamus had allowed those brown eyes see the other side of him, he allowed that camera see that other side, and he let those blue, broken eyes see what he had created. "Eddie...I'm going to need backup." He told his friend in a shaky voice while opening the door, walking out to his car, ignoring all of the other eyes on him. They didn't matter, he had a job to do, a job he hadn't done in twenty eight days, a job that was meant for him and him only.

He was about to set those seven souls free.

He was about to find his wife.


	21. Medic

He placed the bottle of wine back down onto the counter, carrying two glasses, each filled a quarter of the way. He stepped his way through the labyrinth of boxes scattered galore, careful not to trip himself or anything over. He heard her soft voice giggle lightly at his action, his cheeks trying hard to hide a blush daring to show, he loved the sound of her voice.

He sighed as he made his way back to her, handing her the glass in his right hand as she accepted with a small thank you. She took a small sip from her beverage as he reclaimed his seat next to her on the living room floor, the lights above dimmed for a reason. She opened another box, having trouble cutting through the packing tape with her blade, he took the opportunity to tease her as she shook her head at him.

"What's behind curtain number one?" Ashley referenced as she pulled back the flaps of the box, Seamus giggling at her humor as he took another sip from his wine, leaning against the thrown together couch with more boxes piled on top.

He looked around at the room itself, admiring every little, amazing detail he could spot, finding himself as the luckiest man in the world. Ashley and himself had just bought their first house, the topic of moving in with each other had been tossed around here and there, but with time, they decided it felt right. It didn't take so long for them to find a place they enjoyed, a place large enough for the both of them and more if they wanted to expand.

The place was beautiful, quite pricy, but they could manage with the jobs they had. Seamus had made it onto the DPD, the Denver Police Department, he still owned his same rank today, but he was amazed that he was a detective alone. Ashley had gotten a raise in pay with her photography occupation, it being great news for the both of them.

Seamus was living his dreams, owning a great job, a lovely home, and the most gorgeous girlfriend he could've ever asked for.

He looked back over to her, the blue starting to wash out of her hair, but she was still as pretty as ever. Her brown eyes such a lovely shade of a dusky ginger, her fingernails painted a light purple, the makeup removed from above her eyes and on her lips making her true beauty stand out. She was the most amazing person he could've ever met, and he never wanted to let her go.

"...I think these are your movies." She said aloud, rummaging through the box, Seamus scooting himself a bit closer to her to take a look for himself. "'Jaws', 'Crash', 'Old School', 'Zoolander'..." She listed, amused by the genres and films he owned, some he was embarrassed of, some not. "'Anchorman', 'Saw', 'The Incredibles'?" She asked, turning towards the blond, a unbelievable smile on her face.

"What?" He asked, laughing lightly. "'It's a good movie." He pushed back, earning a laugh from the love of his life, himself raising his wine glass back to his lips. He swallowed quickly, having something else to say. "I think I have 'Finding Nemo' in there, too." He added, Ashley chuckling at his words.

"How old are you?" She asked, taking a second sip from her glass.

"Hm...I don't know, I lost track...I want to say 500, but I'm not sure..." Seamus teased, laughing along with her, giving her cheek a soft kiss as her eyes went back to the box in front of her.

"What...the fuck...is this?" She asked, pulling out a cover and showing it to her boyfriend with wide eyes, her teeth biting her lower lip. She held up an adult movie in her left hand, looking at Seamus for an answer, her eyebrows raised in anticipation.

"What? I get bored." Seamus admitted, shrugging his shoulders, placing his wine glass onto the coffee table that had been pushed out of the way. Ashley laughed at that, shaking her head at Seamus' dry sense of humor, knowing that she fell in love with the right man, a man who embraced his imperfections and flaws, his mistakes and humiliations.

"I say we burn this." Ashley proposed, gesturing to the cover in her hand with a half naked woman displayed across the front.

"Or...," Seamus added, "we could save it. Your friend Melissa is getting married, right?" He rhetorically asked. "We could give it to her as a wedding present."

Ashley snickered at that, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear, her cheeks glowing pink, a sight that made Seamus fall deeper in love. "You're terrible, you know that?" She told the other, looking into his glinting blue eyes as her smile grew greater.

He nodded with a smug smile. "Not as terrible as the one dating me, so..." The giggled again, Seamus stealing another kiss on her cheek, Ashley throwing the DVD at him lightly and in jest.

"Take your movie, you pervert." She joked, her arms still rummaging through the box.

"I love you..." He whispered in her ear, that childish smile still lingering on his young face.

"Tell that to your porn." Ashley teased, taking another sip of her wine as Seamus chuckled to himself.

Things never felt so perfect...

 

 

His eyes teared up at the memory, his mind forcing him to relive what already had been, the few good memories his mind still possessed only used their power for the worse, sprinkling him in pain as he was on his way to suffer more. His hands gripped at the steering wheel as he made a left, the sound of police sirens following him only made the scene more real, he was leading them to the beginning of it all, and the end of it all.

He couldn't think straight, he was in too deep to go back to floating now, as much as his fears carried themselves on his shaking shoulders, he had to see the nightmare through. His foot pressed a little harder on the gas pedal, his car revving faster to his final destination, the place that would neglect the possibility of Seamus' heart to be revived, it would only set it ablaze and his own tired eyes would watch it go up in smoke.

Smoke that spelled out her name, six simple letters to become carved into his mind, to become carved underneath and onto his eyes, to become carved onto that golden band he refused to take off. His heart burned for her, and in the end, it still would with its ashes coating his system. He took a deep breath, arms still quivering from the moments that played out prior, and to the build up to now.

Seamus pictured Jordan's bloody, broken body laying helpless on the floor, his face bruised and beaten, his eyes black on the lids and of the irises. A bit of his blood had seeped into Seamus' knuckles, it starting to dry in the small crevasses of his skin, some caked under his short nails. He himself was not Jordan Mathewson, but he owned a great deal of him on the inside coming to the out.

He had that twisted mind that understood the man like a brother, Jordan impressed with the likeness between them. He owned those same cracked, blue eyes that had seen the darkest night that the moon could allow, a night bathed in blood that black was the only color it could be. Now, he shared his blood, his flesh under his fingers, his spit, his sweat, the DNA of a true killer. He held that same dead heart, too.

Not a face.

But a body he mirrored.

A person he mirrored, and nearly became.

He stared into the eyes of a man who had killed many, he tasted the bitter words to bounce off of his blistered tongue, he felt those calloused hands tug at each and every string his heart owned, loosening them, but letting the others in the world cut them apart. He smelled the feelings to come off of the other, how forced or fake they were coming from a man who could no longer feel, the only true emotion being fear.

Seamus heard the screams, begs, and pleads of the victims he had taken, he had ont seen their faces, but somehow, he could hear their voices. So desperate, so alone, in pain, frightened, giving up, giving in, or in it for the fight. Their yells of protest, their shouts for help, their small whispers to each other from cell block to cell block, the silence for nearly a month.

The fears. The viers. The tears.

His head pounded again, his eyes beginning to tear up once again.

He felt terrible for every one of them.

Spencer Lovell. Joe Esten. Dexter Manning.

...Ashley...Ashley...

 

"Are you sure you should be painting?" He asked for another time, turning back around to face his wife, a paint roller in his hand as well as that permanent substance smeared here and there on his black shirt. "I mean, breathing this in is just like breathing in cigarette smoke. It isn't good for you, especially now." He told her, gesturing to the obvious.

Ashley stepped down off of her stepping stool carefully, a small smile plastered on her face as she looked back at her husband, glad to see his care and concern. "I'll be fine," she informed him, "it's only for a day or two, and cigarette smoke smells worse." He laughed at that, walking over to her and pressing a kiss to her head, and a hand onto her growing belly.

It was a miracle when Seamus found out that Ashley was pregnant, being a father was something he had always wanted, and in a few short months, that dream of his would become a reality. Ashley was five months pregnant with their baby girl, the both of them painting the room pink to procrastinate thinking of a name, a topic that had a tendency of showing up unannounced.

But with a name, or two, or none, it didn't matter to Seamus. What mattered was that he was married to the most beautiful in the world, and together, they would take of their first child, and however many more that decided to tag along in years in future.

"Besides, if I left you alone, the room wouldn't be pink anymore." Ashley mentioned, placing her paint roller back in he hand and dunking it in the paint once again.

"Again, why are we even painting it pink?" Seamus asked, continuing the area he left off on. "I understand it's 'custom', if you will, but what's the point? Babies can't even see color when they're first born." He told her, those words catching her attention as she turned back to look at him.

"You actually read the books." She pointed out, stunned with the man she had married. She knew he had the potential to be a great father, and to see his dedication coming into play warmed her heart. She smiled lightly before groaning uncomfortably, placing a hand to her stomach. "Stop kicking, I know you're in there." She told her unborn daughter, Seamus grinning at that.

"I did." He told her, bringing it back to the hundreds of books Ashley had bought to prepare them for their very first child. "I also read that baby name book your sister gave us, and I'm thinking of something along the lines of Maggie." Seamus told her, smiling devilishly as he heard her reaction.

"I hate you." She joked. "You want to name our child after that old cashier that flirts with you whenever you go to the store?" She clarified in a sarcastic manner as Seamus only laughed, dipping his roller back in that obnoxious color of pink. "Why don't we name her after my mom? Or your mom? Erin's a pretty name, so is Andrea."

"Like the color of pink on the walls, it's kind of 'custom', isn't it?" He rhetorically asked, his answer owning some sense to his wife. "What about Lisa? I've always liked that name." Seamus suggested, rolling over the white primer on the bedroom wall.

"Hm, Lisa was the name of this stuck up bitch at my high school, so I'm going to pass." Ashley giggled with her words, tightening the hair tie in her deep brow hair.

"Watch your language, Ashley Beth, there is a child present." Seamus teased, gesturing to her belly as she shook her head at him, her cheeks burning pink. "What names were you thinking of?" He asked, getting a dab of paint onto his shirt.

"I don't know," she pondered aloud, "it's hard to think of something your kid won't kill you for later." The two laughed, Seamus fell in love with the sound. "Maybe Eleanor, or Morgan, or Abbey, or Haley." She listed, Seamus liking the sound of those names, but none sounded just right for their baby daughter.

"Well...maybe we could choose a name from someone we already know, and think off of that." Seamus suggested, pulling off the painter's tape that prevented the paint from bleeding onto the threshold. "There's a girl down at the station who does blood spatter analysis, her name's Beverly."

"Oh, Beverly's cute." Ashley commented, liking Seamus' idea. "I had a college professor for photography, given he was a guy, but the name Devon could be cute for a girl." She stated, stepping down from her stool again.

"Maybe we could name her after the prom queen of my class, Leslie Scott." Seamus shook his head. "Nevermind, she was a whore." Ashley laughed at that.

"Seamus Paddy, there is a child present." She mocked, earning a chuckle from her husband.

"Maybe we could name her after my first girlfriend, Tanya." Ashley shook her head, waiting for another option to turn down. "Or after the bride you just took pictures for at the last wedding." He rose his free hand as he shrugged his shoulders.

"I wish it were that easy." Seamus cocked his head, slightly confused. "There were two grooms at the last wedding, Ben and Maxwell."

Seamus sighed. "We could name our daughter Ben." He snickered, Ashley covering her mouth as she laughed. "This is hard!" He complained, taking a seat on the ground, his eyes scanning the newspaper laid below to catch the paint if it were to fall or spill. "Why don't we name her after this journalist for the newspaper? Margot? Or-Or after your boss? Sharon?" He suggested, just running his mouth.

"How about the woman who sold me this paint? Stephanie?" He asked, standing back up abruptly.

"Wait..." Ashley stopped him, that name making a smile form on her face. "Stephanie...I really like that..." She told him, gazing into Seamus' bold, blue eyes and seeing him smile as well. "Stephanie." She said again, the name sounding perfect.

"Hold on." He told her, grabbing a paintbrush off of the ground the dunking it in the pink pain can. He made his way to her, placing his left hand on her stomach as he wrote with the other the five letters 'S-T-E-P-H' in pink paint. The two giggled at that, the nickname Steph written across Ashley's tummy.

"I'd like it better if it was spelled with an 'F'." Ashley admitted, looking back up to her husband, herself wearing one of his old, oversized shirts.

"Change your shirt, I'll rewrite it." He teased, capturing his wife's lips in a kiss that meant much more than the world to him.

How sweet her lips tasted...

 

He bit his lip hard, it was bound to leave a mark there for days, the blood seeping into his mouth and just teasing its flavor onto Seamus' tongue. He couldn't get her beautiful face out of his mind, he couldn't stand to see it, he couldn't stand to see the comparison. Her heart shaped lips, her almond shaped eyes, her thick, straight hair, her skin so smooth, so soft.

He didn't want to think of her now, what that madman did to her...

Her hair knotted, matted, probably pulled, yanked on, uncared for for so long. Her lips dry, cracked, bleeding from intake of little to no water, he'd give them enough food and hydration just to keep them alive, not to keep them healthy. Her skin beaten and bruised, abused and scarred by two simple creations, man's hands.

Her body stiff and pale, her heart no longer pumped, the veins more visible on the skin, her skin beginning to recede away on her nails, on her scalp, on the corners of her mouth. Rope burns around her wrists and ankles, he said he tied her weak body to a chair before taking her life slowly, slowly. Her skin not only rotting, but burned off of the bone, crisp and black, infected and turning colors of red, yellow, and gray.

And her eyes glazed over, blind to what she couldn't see, open to the world, left open by her killer, open.

He always feared that her eyes were open.

His chest began to shake as he continued straight, his eyes glancing up to the patrol of police cars behind him, he could see the vague details of Eddie's face in the front window of the car just behind him. His stomach churned, that face of Ashley which he dreaded to sew was less then ten minutes away, there wasn't time to prepare himself foe the worst.

But he'd do it for Eddie.

He'd do it Stef.

He'd do it Liz.

He'd do it for that beautiful soul that once changed his life, that innocent soul that wasn't given a chance, and that missing soul behind those subdued eyes.

He pressed harder on that gas, needing to find his wife and admit the reality.

Dead or alive?

An age old question.

 

 

"You did amazing..." He whispered to her, pushing a strand of hair out of her face as he cooed at her, seeing how tired her eyes were. He smiled at her, her smiling weakly back, the room completely quiet with little to now chatter going on down the hall. "I'm so proud of you, honey, you did so great..." He leaned down and kissed her forehead hearing her hum contently.

He pulled away slowly, being considerate to how exhausted she was, the remains of pain still lingering, but dying down slightly. He sighed, resting his arm on one of the bedside rails, soothing his wife after all she had just been through. She closed her eyes lightly before reopening them, her breaths even and leisure, her small smile still holding on.

"I didn't hurt your hand too much, did I?" She asked with a quiet voice, giggling lightly, Seamus smiling to see that she was beginning to feel better.

"Eh, you might've bruised the bone, and ripped off four of the five fingers, but other than that, it's still intact." She laughed lightly at that, shaking her head at his sarcastic manner, enjoying his light humor at such a time. "How are you feeling?" He asked, making sure to keep his voice low just for her.

She sat herself up with help of her husband, his hand cooling down her exposed back in her hospital gown. "I'm better, doesn't really hurt so much anymore." She answered, pulling up her light blue blanket to hide her now empty belly. "Thank you for being here with me." She thanked him, her hair pulled back in a sweaty mess, but Seamus didn't care.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world." He told her, pushing back that same strand of hair again. He had been called out of work with the news from his wife, there wasn't a moment in between before he was speeding to the house to pick her up, anxious to get to the hospital. He still wore his badge on his belt, his gun holster strapped to his shoulders, but empty.

"You still look beautiful." He complimented her as she blushed, his lips kissing her soft cheek, knowing that he had married the right woman.

They were soon interrupted by a light knock at the door followed by a nurse walking holding a small bundle in her arms. She smiled at the two of them, her short legs walking towards them, the light blue of her outfit calming to the eye. "Mr. and Mrs. O'Doherty?" She said calmingly, bouncing the small bunch in her arms. "I want you to meet your daughter." She warmly stated, tears beginning to fill Ashley's eyes as the nurse slowly handed the blanketed bundle over.

Ashley adjusted the small being in her arms wrapped in a pink, polka dotted blanket, her hands shaking somewhat, but her face only wrote joy. Seamus leaned a bit closer, wrapping his arm around his wife as he looked down upon his newborn daughter.

Her small eyes opened to reveal blue irises, her mouth drooling a little as her tongue constantly licked at her plump lips. Her small nose sniffled lightly, her chubby cheeks pink and soft to the touch as she squirmed in her confines, her small feet showing, her toes curling and so tiny. Her head lulled around before her eyes found those of her mother's and those of her father's, both pairs on the verge of crying helplessly.

"Hi, baby girl..." Ashley whispered, her smiling growing a little more, a tear falling down her face. "Hi...hi, little girl, hi..." She mumbled over and over, the child simply focused on Ashley's brown eyes. "Hi, sweetie..."

Seamus sniffled lightly, holding back his sobs. "H...Hi, baby..." He muttered, wiping at his eyes, hating to be so emotional, but that was something about him that Ashley loved with all of her heart. "Hi, Stefani...hi, baby...aren't you beautiful?" He sniffled again as he felt Ashley's head rest on his shoulder, the feeling of home.

"I love you." She whispered to him, her eyes showing that she meant it.

"I love you." He repeated, sealing her lips in a quick kiss, their noses bumping into each other's. Stefani yawned softly, drawing their attention back to the child in Ashley's arms. "Hi, honey...," he chuckled lightly, "...she looks so confused..." Ashley snickered at that. "'Where am I?' 'What is this?'" He mimicked his daughter, Ashley holding back her laughter as more tears sprung in her eyes.

"'Is this what life is? I want to go back in the womb.'" He teased, Ashley resting further against her husband, herself crying tears of overwhelming happiness.

"You're all I could've ever wanted..." She whispered to him, her eyes daintily closed, her words causing Seamus to wipe away more tears from his blue, brisk eyes.

He rested his head atop of hers, kissing her head lightly, looking down at their newborn child and smiling widely at the heaven he felt. He let a breath out, but could still smell that sweet scent of the woman he married.

"And you're so much more..."

 

132, 132, 132...

That number haunted his brain, it forever would until he found that burnt house full of the corpses of eight victims and the demons of eight more. How could a house like that even stand? The appearance of rotted wood near to collapsing, that brown, dingy color the paint had succumb to be, the wallpaper torn and moldy, the air filled with poison and dust, the sight simply sad to see, to think of the memories once made in this house.

The memories to lock themselves away in Jordan's mind...no wonder burned it...

Seamus could only imagine the putrid smell of mildew, dirt, and the scent of decaying flesh and fire. The sight on the outside was terrible enough to picture, but the inside was the funhouse Jordan had set up for the detective to see, and see was all he could do. The house was mere minutes away, but his mind could already picture the sights from inside, an anxiety attack threatening to take effect, it just hiding in the ravine of where Seamus' heart one lay.

He could taste the metallic flavor of dried blood on the floor, on the chair, on the butcher's knife that Jordan once held in his hand. Taste the blood on the severed limbs attracting insects of all sorts, and the blood sprayed onto the torso of James Wilson. Wrath. He felt a chill when thinking of finding Aleksandr Marchant, frozen to death from the inside out, the thought of that much ice making Seamus' teeth freeze. Envy.

He'd find that bone and marrow of Spencer Lovell still tied upon that wooden wheel, his body unable to heal the damage that had been done to him, the cuts, scratches, and scars left untreated for weeks, bacteria eating him away. Pride. He'd find the mutilated body of Kevin MacFarlane with all of his senses removed, his eyes gouged, his hands torn apart, his tongue cut out from his mouth, his hears damaged, and nose sliced off.

Despond.

He cringed at the thought of finding the body of Joe Esten lain helpless on the floor paralyzed and poisoned, feeling his death grow closer with every second, but unable to free himself, unable to cry, unable to scream, he was sentenced just to lay there and take it. Sloth. To be boiled alive...Seamus took a deep breath, impotent to the pain Dexter Manning was given, to have every cell of your body fried off as you drowned in a fiery burn entering your lungs. Greed.

He couldn't imagine Daniel Gidlow with the slight pull of his uvula being the hint of a gag. The method of torture for Dan was scarring to anyone who could listen to it, the items placed in his mouth, the ones that clogged his throat, the toads, the snakes, the rats, his own vile vomit. After death would be worse. The creatures burrowing into his flesh, his organs, ripping free from the confines of flesh and blood, making their home in his cold bones. Gluttony.

And lust.

To have your body burned, set aflame, to hear the skin sizzle and pop, to smell the smoke more in your eyes than your nose, breathing it in through your mouth, your throat hoarse, unable to scream for help, you could only cry as the fire ate you alive...

Tears consumes Seamus' eyes again.

That was the death of his very own wife, Ashley O'Doherty.

And his was on his way to see it for himself.

One dead body he could barely deal with.

Two, he would need a breather.

Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven...

Eight.

132, 132, 132...

128...130...

...132...

He yawned quietly as he stepped through the front doorway, his back aching and eyes wanting to close for the remainder of the night. He had another late night at the department, he wished he could've spent those hours at his home, but he had a job that needed to be done. They had captured a murderer that had been on the loose for too long, with the evidence against him, he would serve life in prison on account of twenty two murders within the past three months.

And after all that work, there was only one thing he wanted to do: lay with his wife and daughter to make sure they were okay.

He hung up his overcoat on the coat hanger by the door, his eyes looking up at the clock to see it was twelve minutes past ten, a little too late in the hour for himself. He made his way into the dark kitchen, a light left on above the sink so one could simply see, his feet removing his double knotted boots, and sighing at the pain that was relieved from his feet.

He opened his silver fridge, his stomach declining that it needed food, but his throat made him pick up a bottled water, his eyes contemplated a beer for a while, but his common sense deciding against it. Remembering the night he had, he knew he'd drink more than he wanted or needed, and the last thing he needed was a hangover so early.

He left his carry on bag on the kitchen table, quietly making his way up the stairs, careful not to disturb the ones he came home to. He took a small sip from his bottle to soothe his scratched throat, the cold beverage already making a difference. He sighed lightly, the more he walked into his home, the more at home he felt, the warmth of the place wrapping him in a comfortable love that would only monetarily fade when he left for work the next morning.

The floorboards creaked underneath of his feet as he stepped up the stairs, feeling his heart slow its pace, knowing he could relax at a place so familiar. He met the hallway floor, turning left and immediately meeting the place he wanted to be the most: his bedroom. The door was left open a crack, the lamp light still on advising that he wouldn't be falling asleep alone.

He pushed open the door lightly, taking in that sweet scent of the room that he loved, himself basking in the low glow of the room. As soon as he entered that threshold, he felt a weight lift off of his shoulders, the feeling of momentary freedom, momentary relief, but that single moment was what got him by. His eyes traveled to the bed, and his heart melted at the sight.

Ashley was leaned back against the pillow on the headboard of the bed, her usual pajamas consisting of a brightly colored tank top, and pair of black leggings that fit her size well. She seemed so comfortable on the made bed, her arms darped over her stomach as she held something on top.

Her daughter of three months was lain on her stomach, Stefani's head resting just above Ashley's bosom, her soft, duckling like hair a cute mess, Ashley's hand on her back lightly as the child breathed. Herself wore a light blue onesie, the sleeves hugging her pudgy arms, her legs curled up, her toes twitching. Seamus' smile was one to never fade as he saw that Stefani's eyes were closed, Ashley's as well to show that they had been asleep for what appeared like hours.

Seamus giggled lightly as he made his way quietly to the bed, taking a seat next to the two, his eyes taking in all he could get and a smidge more. His eyes told his mind things it otherwise could not comprehend, he was astounded by the sights surrounded him, unbelieving of that that was his life. These were his wife and daughter, two things he always wanted, two things that were uneasy to obtain, and two things he had revolved his world around.

He had always imagined himself getting married, but he couldn't fathom to whom. He pictured someone smart, someone with a sense of humor, someone with a talent that would blow him away. He pictured someone shy, but confident. He pictured someone perfect with all of their imperfections, all of their quirks, all of their habits, or someone broken that he could help fix. He pictures someone beautiful...and no matter what, they'd always be that...

Then he met Ashley Patching who one day became Ashley O'Doherty.

And a father was something he'd find an honor to be. To be able to raise a child he knew would be a difficult challenge, but he knew the small things were what he'd find inspiration in. To watch someone he cared for with all of his heart grow up was all he wanted, to see their personality develop, to see who they acted like the most, looked like the most, thought like the most. To see them succeed in life, to help them if they were to fail, to be there every step of the way no matter how hard times should get.

 

He promised he'd stick with that when holding Stefani for the very first time.

He had a family. Not parts of one or a makeshift one to fall apart within seconds, a full, true family that he was dedicated to support. He couldn't have been happier, he had accomplished his goals in life, and the feeling of realizing that left him in a state of awe. His life was far from, but exactly perfect, there being such a thing, and that word sounding make believe. Things were falling into place, Seamus proud of the life he had been living aside troubled pasts.

He had a family.

Tears flooded his eyes.

He sniffled as he dipped his head down, kissing Stefani's soft, little head, she wasn't startled by the action as she fell deeper into her sleep. He wiped at his eyes as he made his way to his sleeping wife, kissing her cheek lightly, proud to say that he was in love with her. He pulled away after a few seconds, admiring the sights again, his daughter, his wife, the ring on his finger that resembled his meaning in the world, to the world.

He was a husband, a father, the best detective on his team.

He was determined that there was no downside to life...

...now his left hand held two things...that empty ring...and a burn to remember who made it that way...

 

Seamus pulled up alongside the curb, cutting off the engine immediately, and reloading his gun, not wanting to fall victim to any of the surprises that may lurk inside. He sighed to himself before exiting his car, his hand placed on the handle to open it, but a sharp breath in through the mouth prevented him, he was going in with his sensitivity worn on his sleeve, he'd probably never fully bounce back.

He swallowed, craning his neck as he stared into in the rear view mirror, cop cars with flashing lights faded into the background, the sirens softening as he continued to look, the silhouette of Eddie becoming shadowy and shadowy until not even the features of his faces could be read, he was just a blur between reality and fantasy, reality and hell. The focus became less off of that and more onto the one staring into that mirror, his attention becoming theirs.

He simply stared into his own eyes, he could barely stand the sight between himself and the small bits of his reflection, still amazed that he could see. His eyes were cracked seemingly beyond repair, they were once beautiful, glass orbs of a midday blue, so beautiful to gaze at, so beautiful to look into. They used to be so sweet, so soft, harmless to everything and everything would be inhumane to harm them.

But now they were unusable, stained with the profane treatments of the people in the world, of just the world, they had been beaten and battered, they were bleeding and bruised. They had seen the darker side to life, the grotesque manifestations the darkness could create, the cold in the world only growing colder. They couldn't stand the sights, so ugly, so horrible that they broke his eyes from staring.

He raised a hand to his eyes, careful not to get cut by his own self, studying every line and break each of his eyes held, they seemed like a work of art to some, only because they weren't the ones with broken eyes, they didn't feel that pain. He sighed as he turned away, his eyes stating at the gun in his hand, he had a job to do, a job he hadn't done as he had lost the inspiration, the drive, the desire to be one to save another. And now he was only rescuing bodies that had already lost their souls.

Saving himself from insanity.

But he needed to see it through, thesacrifice he had put into the case already, it'd shred his skin if he were toback out now, so close to the end of the road. He took in a determined breath,looking back into those busted and bloodshot eyes and seeing the man he used to be trembling inside, withering away in a prison cell he made himself. What he'd do to return to that man, what he'd give up, what he'd act upon.

 

What this pain would take away.

It was a shot at fate, the pain beyond that rotted door would either take away the prison bars from which he was held behind, or would take away that vulnerable man away for his execution. 

It was a shot at fate.

He'd stay to see which would happen.

For her.

For them.

He swallowed back what he felt would be a sob, the tears swmming in his eyes, but the fear only kept him going which was a first in his short life. He opened the door to his car and slammed it thereafter, his gun cocked, his finger lightly placed on the trigger, the cold air of February nipping at his skin. He let a breath out as he stood on the road, his eyes staring straight ahead at the nightmare he had brought himself to.

The house seemed to be a good three stories and in good condition considering the events from years ago. The house appeared just like Seamus had pictured it, old, dark, and damp, just a slight step onto the porch would send it tumbling down. The windows were boarded shut, the glass in front of them broken and cracked, the shutters chipped or completely off of the hinges, the house starting to fall down.

His house held a lot of meaning, frankly too much as Seamus felt his chest tighten, every breath forced him closer towards detonating and one day, he knew he would. This was the house of where Jordan Mathewson was abused beyond imagine, the house where he was ignored, the house where he was neglected, beaten, screamed at, mistreated, and raped senseless. This was the house where his friends had been slaughtered, his father had been murdered, and his mother had burned as well as the building. This was the house where history had repeated itself, leaving the corpses of eight innocent people, and ghosts from before, the last victim still unknown to the world, his soul still trapped under a dark history.

This was the house that held his wife for twenty eight days.

She was only fifteen minutes away.

And now she was only one as Seamus took a step, his boot mashing into the dead lawn with melting slush loitering in places it shouldn't have. He took another step, hearing the doors of the other cars close behind him, they were waiting for him to lead the way. He took a third, beginning to hear steps trial behind him, it comforting to hear, but it left him in a constant state of paranoia.

 

He took a fourth.

A fifth.

He guided himself up the path of the house and to the front door itself, his gun held by both hands firmly, the smell of the porch alone was exactly how Seamus had guessed, musty and moldy with the heavy trace of dust. He waited before doing anything more as officers and other detectives from his department crowded the door along with him, their weapons ready as Seamus tried the doorknob.

Locked.

He took a step back, swallowing before trying to kick the door down, but even with the force of his heavy weighted boot, the door wouldn't budge. The door must've been reinforced from the other side, a tip from Jordan that they were meant to go another way, another way to reveal the horrors of a true haunted house. He understood the man more than he understood himself.

"Haskin, Jonas, Withers," Seamus commanded his group, "keep trying to get the door open." His voice was stern and strong-mindedly tenacious. "Nicco, Hegelein, try to find another way in, a back door, side door, whatever you can find." He directed them as they obeyed, marching off of the porch without a word and back around the house.

"Eddie...you're with me."

 

The two made their way off of the porch, Seamus' eyes scanning every flaw of the house, imagining the facade it once held to all that saw it before their eyes, but now, it owned the same ugliness that left scars on the inside. It was only time before the outward appearance matched the inner, the smoke was just as deadly as the flame. And the battered mien, the overbearing scent, the creaks, the moans, the groans were only blinded the eyes, but told the ears the truth.

The two walked around the side of the house, the smell only getting stronger, that strong fragrance of fungus and of the earth, Eddie raising a hand to his nose to try and block it out, but Seamus knew that it would only get worse from there. The smells of rotting flesh, cigarette buts, smoke, ash, fire, and feces were only to add on, the odor was already beginning to fill his nose. Their feet mashed into the uncared for lawn, the grass the color of a dying, ill green, brown patches here and there, the ground hard and stiff, but soggy as one stepped on.

The sun was covered up by the blanket of clouds that rolled past, making the environment match Seamus' mind, dreary and cold, eerie and mysterious, the out look he owned towards everything, those same aspects tattooed onto his eyes. He shivered lightly, the temperature lowering somewhere to the mid thirties, he felt a wind gust blow at his spine. He hunched his shoulders to keep himself focused, his gun still locked between his two hands, his mind destined to end the search he owned for nearly a month.

In death.

The two came across a door leading to the cellar, the gray paint beginning to flake off of the metal, the handles small, one had broken off, just hanging on by a loose screw. Seamus neared it, being cautious as his brawny hand pulled lightly at the handle still intact, a slight creak heard in a land of silence, the echoes and bangs from the others simply fading away. He door opened hesitantly, rust making a home on the hinges, a cloud of dust infecting the surrounding air as Seamus forced the second door open, that overly loud grating ringing in his ears.

Seamus held a hand to his mouth, keeping down the contents of his stomach, the scent from inside of the house making a break for the light. He was hesitant before stepping down the cement stairs, them being chopped and cracked, being covered in dirt and beetles of nearly every kind. Seamus shivered at the side of them, a phobia of his taking over, but he needed to take that step down into that nightmare.

Eddie coughed quietly, losing his breath to the overbearing scent. "You think a guy like him would lock every entrance." He mumbled, his thick accent still sounding fresh to the blond's ears.

"Not unless he wanted visitors."Seamus commented, looking up into Eddie's brown eyes to pass his point along,Eddie understanding that this was something Jordan wanted to happen. He lookedbeyond the future into something unforeseeable, something indefinite, but he knew the events in the end wouldn't simple just be due to chance.

 

Jordan left that hand of James Wilson with purpose, he left that fingerprint with purpose, he wanted to be identified as the killer of many, he stalked his prey a little too well, learning them both inside and out, and took his time when he prepared to attack. He wanted to speak only with Seamus himself, for him to put together the pieces of a crooked puzzle, the hints he left, the ticks he owned, the explanations, the stories, the crack of every knuckle.

He wanted this to happen.

So he left the door open.

Seamus dipped his head down, his gun lowered to his side, but still prepared to turn into a weapon rather than an accessory. He lowered a foot onto the first step, the distant smell of fire meeting his nostrils along with the sound of a crunch underneath of his weight. He stepped onto the second step, it was uneven compared to the first, Seamus wobbling a bit as he lowered himself onto the third, another crunch heard as Eddie began to follow after him.

He had made his way to the second basement door, it left open the slightest crack, allowing the cold air in to leave the house freezing, but allowing fresh oxygen to feed the fire within. Seamus removed a hand from his gun for a moment, pushing open the door further before slowly making his way inside, the feeling of the room weighing down on him as he looked around.

All he could see were pictures, the dim light from outside shining through the open gap he had created. Photos hung from this wall to that of all the same people, blue eyes, brown haired, blond. Pages from books were torn and pinned, passages from the bible itself, information he had found on the people, on the deaths. Of all the same people. Daniel Gidlow, Joe Esten, James Wilson, their faces hung and covered in a thick layer of dust, but their eyes could still haunt.

"What the f..." He heard Eddie whisper behind him, his own eyes studying the work that had been displayed on the walls, it would have taken years to obtain so much. Pictures hung on the walls taken from himself, pictures in color, some in black and white of those he had watched, them carrying about their everyday business as he stalked in the smolder behind them.

Pictures of them at their jobs, in their cars, leaving their houses, entering their houses. Out with friends, spouses, or just by themselves, from out in the dangerous world, to right in the comfort of their own home. Them cooking food, watching television, dressing, cleaning, a few of them sleeping, a few looking as if they were taken from inside of the home itself instead of a distance.

 

Each picture was taken through the eyes of a stranger, but it anger Seamus until it got personal. There were pictures of himself leaving to and from work, himself working in the department building, most were shot through the windows of his home, a place he thought he was secure. Pictures of him taking care of his daughter. Pictures of him spending time with his friend. Pictures of him talking with his sister in law.

Pictures of him with Ashley.

Them laying on the couch, on the bed, in each other's arms. Sitting down at the kitchen table, the kitchen counter, the living room, outside. Pictures taken of Ashley from her office, of her preparing dinner, of her in times of vulnerability or privacy. There were pictures of Stefani, the gun shaking in Seamus' hands. Her playing with her dolls, her eating at the dinner table, sitting at her desk doing her homework, laying down asleep in her stuffed animal crowded bed.

Then his eyes trailed over a photo that made his head begin to pound.

It was taken from the window just outside of his bedroom, the bedroom he once shared, but now it was an empty tomb. The curtains shielding one side from the other were pulled back slightly, just far enough for a camera lens to peek through and see behind the scenes. The picture was of Ashley and Seamus in their bed, sharing another of their intimate moments. His bare chest was pressed against her back, the two of them unknowingly facing the camera, her head tilted back as they shared a passionate kiss, one of his hands holding her naked side, the other holding one of her pendulous breast, her hair thrown in front of her shoulder to hide the second.

How did it feel...her hair...her hips...her breasts...hm?

Seamus' hand flew up in disgust the ripped the many pictured of their sexual encouter down, a storm of dust brewing as he pulled down one after one after one, crinkling them in his fist. Although it was all evidence, he didn't need it to convict Jordan Mathewson. All he needed was Jordan Mathewson himself. Seamus held in a cry of anguish as he continued his search through the house, his blood already boiling.

They kept marching forward, their feet stumbling over and through the cluttered messes in the floor, many if which were used cigarette filters possessing the prints of those calloused hands. The eyes of every picture kept following the two as they made their way along, Seamus used to their shuddersome stares as Eddie was introducing himself to the stress. He tried to keep his gaze off of them, but there was something about them he found beckoning.

It wasn't before long they had found a second door, Seamus approaching it calmly, waiting a moment before pulling down the heavy handle and pulling it towards himself, pulling it open. The two men felt a cold gust enter the room, colder than any snowfall, colder than any icy soul to come across in the world. They shievred as they looked in, the scenery becoming familiar to Seamus although he had never stepped foot into the area prior.

But as he searched around, he soon found why.

The body of Aleks Marchant hung from the ceiling still, but his face was unrecognizable due to layers upon layers of ice forming on his face and all over his naked body, that was all that his skin was made of, his flesh and blood simply ice and crystals, so beautiful, so deadly. His hands were tied above him, his feet shackled to the floor, his head aimed down as he accepted his fate, his screams still echoing off of the walls.

Eddie stepped in after the other, his innocent eyes staring straight ahead before looking down, unable to see the fate of an innocent man mistaken for envy. Seamus took a step closer, able to make out his face frozen underneath, he could see the tears slathering Aleks' closed eyes. Seamus let out a freezing breath as he rose a hand up, gently the tips of his fingers on Aleks' face, amazed at seeing the real thing.

There was beauty in death.

He tore his hand away, feeling the skin ofhis fingertips rip off, himself hissing in pain at the misery he felt, the coldair attacking the flesh underneath. "Eddie...I'll get forensics to come down here, but stay yourself..." Seamus told the other, making his way out of the freezer and beginning to march up the basement stairs.

"Wait...why?" Eddie asked, his eyes frantic and panicked, wishing he wasn't a part of the case.

Seamus turned around, staring at his friend in the eyes, seeing the cracks trying to repair themselves no matter the daily atrocities they suffered and viewed. He didn't want them to end up like his own. He didn't want him to end up like himself. Seamus' lip quivered as he didn't know what to say, the words he needed not coming to mind. He shook his head, speaking from his heart.

"I'd still like to remember you as Edwin Cardona. Not as a shell with broken eyes."

Eddie nodded as he understood.

Seamus nodded back respectfully as he turned around, withdrawing a breathless sigh as his feet took step after step, raising himself higher towards the ground floor he heard a hustle and bustle from advising that the front door was able to be opened. A path for the others. Jordan wanted Seamus to take another way. He met what he he was dreading as he opened the basement door to be met with chatter and flashes from more officers and detectives as they arrived at the scene, this house simply being a playground for them to get a paycheck.

 

They simply observe the bodies, take photos to waste, report and repeat the obvious without a care or second thought. Who these people were didn't matter to them, they didn't even treat them like the vessel a soul once possessed, simply just a throw away corpse that took up matter. They'd study them, take what they needed, and move onto the next without a word for body.

But every death meant much more to Seamus, each giving him a different perspective of who Jordan Mathewson was on the inside, each alarming a new feeling inside of himself. Seeing the body of Aleksandr Marchant in front of him opened his mind, imagining it briugh out the horror, but seeing it up close with his own eyes, feeling the chills, the cold, the temperature, the touch the being before him, it was a sensation like never before.

Jordan had three sides, much like every story.

The good.

The bad.

And the exception of in between, the exception of art and its affiliates with meaning.

"Cardona's with one in the basement." He told a forensic technician who simply nodded at his words before removing herself from the current scene to absentmindedly capture another. He walked further into the house, walking past a set of open double doors and into a dining room filled with only the light of flashlights and camera flares.

He stared between the gap of a woman on his team and another photographer, his eyes meeting the sight that made his stomach churn, but mind wonder. The body of Daniel Gidlow was found strapped to a chair much like how Jordan had described, his lifeless eyes staring above and beyond at the ceiling, Seamus could see their glaze from his standpoint.

Blood and vomit ran down his bearded chin, down his neck, leading a trail to his big stomach, his big stomach that was concaving, turning into nothing but flesh stapled onto bones, a home for the rodents, toads, and snakes. Rats had burrowed into his flesh and tore holes through his stomach and chest, his skin turning gray and pale. His fingernails were fading to black, his hair beginning to fall out, his skin wrinkling like a dried fruit, and oozing with his own thin blood.

Seamus turned away, feeling sick at the sight, his stomach a sensitive organ to a majority of sights, deep breaths usually helped, but all his mouth took in was a cloud full of dust and dander. But his mind was intrigued by the exhibit left for all to see, he felt like he was just another tourist at a museum, observing and perceiving all that was around him as he took the malformed setting in.

 

He kept walking forward, he wasn't sure where his mind was leading him nor his legs, but he allowed himself to keep walking down that path of wonder. His turned his head to the left again, passing by a kitchen, the appropriate place for it as the dining room was just next to it. Time seemed to slow once again, his eyes witnessing a sight to hard to watch.

"...2...3..." He heard a man's voice count before he, with the help of three others, pulled a fried body out a trough, the body's skin peeling and scaled, layered and turning a sickening color of yellow that was unappealing to the eye. The four men lowered the cooked body into a black body bag lain on a gurney, the victim unknown to them, but Seamus knew him like a brother, knew him like a stranger.

Dexter Manning.

The victim of greed, and he suffered the consequence of his sin, to be boiled alive. It was a cruel way to end one's life, but in a way, it needed to be done, someone needed to encounter that pain. They placed his body within the confides of that black, leather bag, the shortest of them placing Dexter's head down lightly, it rolling to the side and staring back into Seamus' eyes.

The eyes where what hurt Seamus the most, the eyes owned a thin skin over them, a light yellow wrapping like cellophane, it giving them that brilliant shine. His gray eyes were open when he died, the pain keeping them that way before Rigor mortis set in, Seamus unable to believe the fact that Dexter had died with his eyes open, staring blindly into that burning sensation that killed him.

It only takes a few degrees above one hundred before your skin starts to sear...

Seamus shook at that thought, those ghost eyes following him until they were no longer in his presence, and even then, they haunted him. He kept sauntering straight ahead, seeing a stair case in the distance, it seeming to be the place the house had been drawing him. But before he could lift himself higher just to watch himself fall, he had to suffer through the march to his death.

"I've found another one!" He heard a feminine voice call out, she had found another body of the several that were splayed across the house, a terrifying game of hide and seek.

"There's another...I think he was poisoned..." He heard another voice call back, Seamus only closed his eyes and kept marching on, knowing it to be the body of Joe Esten, the victim of sloth.

He kept walking.

He opened his eyes again at another flash, hewas walking by a living room, the walls brown and in some areas black, theceiling caving in, the stench unbearable as the scent of urine passed by hisnose. The rug was burned to reveal the hardwood beneath, the windows were boarded extremely well, and chandelier in the room was broken and smashed in a corner on the floor, those inside of the room making sure to steer clear of it.

 

But the main attraction was what sat in the middle. Blood stained the floor beneath in an oversized puddle, it running down the legs of the chair just above it as well as the backrest, arms, and all over the items on and below. The remains of James Wilson lay scattered in a pile, his limbs lay limp on the floor, both arms, and a leg still hanging on by the thinnest threads of tissue. His torso lay lifeless in the seat, his head dipped down, eyes closed and at peace, but not the soul itself.

Another masterpiece by an eccentric artist, a painting bathed in blood, and it being a magnificent sight. Seamus could see all that was exposed of the dead man, the blood his heart once produced, the marrow and inside of his bones, the underside of his skin, and the pain that still locked itself within that carcass. Seamus picked up every hint and detail, savoring it, yet scared of it, a feeling more satisfactory than the pleasure he once felt so long ago.

His foot bumped into something that forced his attention back onto his trail, his black boot meeting the first step of the case, his eyes traveling up each stair and into a shadowy darkness yearning for him to cross into. He swallowed back a lump in his throat along with the scent of the place, readying himself for the inevitable, to the answer of that question he asked one too many nights.

His hands felt sweaty, his throat felt hoarse, his ears heard absolute silence as his left foot lifted onto the step, a groan heard from the rotting wood, a sound Seamus didn't trust, but something he'd have to risk. He had nothing to lose. I lifted his right foot up, pushing himself up onto the second stair, the creak on that less loud, but still warning Seamus to not abuse its frail state.

His hand collected the dust on the railing as his feet slowly walked up the stairs, his conscious mind just a passenger to the reality playing before his tired eyes. His eyes looked from wall to wall, the wallpaper there once a light, lime green, but not it had faded to a dingy sepia that nearly matched his best friend's eyes. His eyes fell down to the steps he sauntered on, finding himself on the last one, one more step and he'd be closer to the reason for the fluttering in his chest.

His heart...did it live yet...?

He shifted his weight as he made his way ontothe next story, his hands shaking as well as his gun as his held it out infront of him, tears beginning to spring in his eyes as they ticked and tockedleft and right from wall, the scenes he had imagined in his mind coming tolife, it wasn't the first time a nightmare became his life. From left to right, it was nothing, but empty bed rooms and barren guest rooms, that same stench of the house flooding from each of the open doors, that smell of urine, mildew, and a stench unknown.

 

Broken floor board squeaked and torn up rug mashed underneath of his boots as he trudged on, his chest feeling tighter, oxygen replaced by that unbreathable smell, his head feeling light atop his shoulders, his vision beginning to blur, those broken eyes of his finally losing their small worth. His eyes examined room after room, each looking the same as the last, boarded windows, rotting walls, and stains of all kinds left behind on the floor and walls, most likely to be urine and blood.

His turned his head to the other side, each room looking more and more like a place of imprisonment, his crippled mind forming an epiphany that he couldn't deny. Those cells each victim found himself locked away in for nearly a month before their execution, these were those cells. The doors locked behind them, the windows inaccessible, them being treated like animals of abuse, giving barely enough food, having to sleep on the floor, losing the concept of time, wallowing in their own filth.

"Help me...help!" He heard the echoes and cries from months past, the helpless voices of the victims locked inside, voices he couldn't have known unless they were really there, still buried in the walls.

"Please, please, please, God, please, please..." He heard another weep as he stepped by another room, avoiding a sinking part in the floor, even with the weight of a feather, it'd collapse onto the bodies below.

"It's okay, it's okay, just breathe, it's going to be okay..." A light voice spoke to itself, Seamus assuming it to be the one of Spencer Lovell, the only one to fight back when Jordan took them for their death, the door to the room hanging onto one hinge, two holes on the wall, along with scratches that lead down, down, until they faded. The stories this place told...

The next he heard was nothing, but sobbing, it not matching the other voices so low, this crying sounding lighter and scared, it sounding as if it had come from a female. His heart shattered when the weeping met his ears, that was the weeping of his wife, the wife that wasn't in his safe arms, but who was he to call them safe? He closed his eyes as he looked away from the room it echoed from, he couldn't take the thought of Ashley chained away against her will, crying her poor heart out as she broke down further than her own miserable husband.

"D-Don't cry, please...A-Ashley, you said your name was...please don't cry...it's going to be alright, it will be..."

He lifted his head up, his eyes meeting the end of the hall as well as another door.

The dry, busted door to the master bedroom.

The place his feet had drawn him, his pulsating mind had drawn him, his withered heart, that meaningless ring.

 

"...it's okay..."

It's okay.

He swallowed, raising his gun back up in front of him, his hands steadier than before, but his fingers still trembled. He took another step forward, that nearly silent creak keeping him on edge, he felt every eye on him, although he was what he always was, alone. And once seeing beyond that slightly crooked door, that same five letter word would take over his life asone by one, the people he loved would fade.

First his sister in law.

Then his friend.

Lastly his daughter.

And before them...his wife.

Himself.

With the barrel of his glock, he pushed the door open slowly, the hinges stiff and stubborn as they works against him, part of the door dragging across the floor. He looked around the large room, it dark and damp in every nook and corner, the bedroom of his parents he was sure of it to be. The place that no one saw behind closed doors, all but one were blinded to the acts that went on.

This was the room where Jordan was forced to watch his parents fornicate with one another with little to no passion filling their scornful bodies. This was the room where Jordan's innocence was stolen from him in the blink of an eye, a long, painful blink. This was the room his mother had been found in after the flames had been set, her arms and legs bound to a chair to keep her from running.

The room of pure lust and revenge.

And history only mimicked itself as Seamus' eyes met the object in the center of the room.

He neared it quietly although he himself heard no sound, tears building up within his eyes, each step he took towards the attraction he found forced another one to escape. His hands quivered as much as his body, but even the shaking of his gun was silent as he took another quiet step, his tongue running over his lips, vaguely tasting his tears.

He had neared the side of the scene, histhighs trembling, his knees shaking, his pulse quickening, he could feel thepumping on his wrists, in his neck. He took a dry breath in as he walked aroundto the front, forcing himself to answer the question that had played him for afool for so long. From the back, he saw her hair, her head pulled to one side.From the side, he saw her thin body appear even thinner, her arms and legs badly burned, the skin undoubtedly infected.

 

From the front...he saw her face...

He head was tilted to the right and resting on her slumped shoulder, her clothes dirty and torn, she still wore the same ones he had seen her in, proof that he was truly living life, truly experiencing death. Her hair was matted and filthy, her eyes her luckily closed, but her skin tore a hole in his chest. It was red, it was black, it was white. Burns traced up and down her body, her legs, her chest, her arms, neck, face. It blistered and bubbled, burnt and crisp, a virus spreading throughout her body as well as a rash.

She still wore her wedding ring.

Seamus let out a quiet sob, tears rolling down his cheeks and onto the ruined floor, the moisture only feeding the mildew, feeding the monster that haunted the house, fed the spirit of every victim, sufferer, innocent. His throat felt choked with the bitten back cries of before, he couldn't hold them back anymore, his shield had broken in his hands. He stared down at the body of his wife, no feelings capturing the pain he felt, no sights could ever replace the one that displayed itself now, no sound could ever wash out the silence.

"Oh god..." He lightly whispered, the memories of his wife burning away like an old film reel, all that could replace them was the burned, battered body of her, the hair, the skin, the lips, the eyes could look into one last time. This was what he would remember her as, not the loving person he had wanted to spend an eternity with, so beautiful, so charming, so witty and sensitive that it cooled and melted his heart.

He'd remember her as a victim of many, killed by the metaphorical hands of God, her still corpse still fresh, but just waiting to rot like the others.

What he'd do to see his wife...

...One. Last. Time...

He removed hand from his gun, it shaking continuously as he slowly reached out, attempting to cope with the honest truth in his own, personal way. For twenty eight days and twenty nine nights he had wished to see her again, to smell her hair, to kiss her lips, to simply lie down next to her in their shared bed, to hold her perfect frame, to just touch her silky skin. If he didn't take the moment to cherish that then, he'd never have that chance again.

To let go...

The tips of his fingers brushed by her fragile skin, being courteous of the sensitive burns that decorated her skin in a divine, but hideous way. Tears trickled out of his eyes as he stared at her closed ones, lightly holding the side of her face with his cold and sweaty hand, it just being a simple touch, but that simple touch caused a spur in her. Ashley groaned lightly, her throat hoarse as Seamus' eyes widened, watching with concern and hope. He leaned a bit closer as she moaned again,her eyes fluttering lightly, her lips moving subtly, yet nothing came from her voice, but pained groans. "Ashley...?" Seamus breathlessly whispered, his voice quavering as he kneeled down in front of her, disarming his gun and placing it to the ground.

 

She tilted her head slightly to the sound of her own name, her throat incredibly dry from lack of water, her lips cracked and bloody, her tongue parched. "Ashley...Ashley...?" He asked again, tears still pouring down his face, unable to capture his own shcok and awe, fear still lingering in the front lobe of his mind. She heard turned again as she took an indeed breath, she was breathing.

Twenty eight days later, she was still breathing.

Her eyes opened only slightly, only a slit of her brown eyes seen in his own blue ones, but a slit was all he needed. Ashley was alive, barely, but she was alive, and here he was to save her just like she had cried for hopelessly, he was here to take her away from it all, even the pain. "Ashley, baby...Ashley, can you hear me...?" His voice broke, his muscles shaking against his bones. "Ash, it's Seamus..." He sobbed, needing to get such depression out of his system, he felt his heart pump again.

"Ashley...?"

He saw a movement in her right hand as he looked down to it, it lifting slightly, but she had trouble due to her weak self. He heard her breath deeply again as she lifted her arm with strain, throughout her days tied to that chair, she must've broken of her restraints, but her energy had slowly decreased before she could save herself. She lifted her hand towards Seamus, recognizing his voice, but still unable to see his face.

"You're okay, baby..." He whispered as he lightly tool her hand, careful of the wounds that tattooed her hand. He lightly took it in his own before placing it on his cheek, assuring her that it was him, assuring himself that it was her, no one's skin was as soft as her own. "You're okay, Ashley, you're okay..." He whispered, placing her hand lightly back onto the armrest before removing the restraints on her ankles, her hissing and groaning as the pain.

As he untied her second ankle, she fell forward in her seat her body unable to keep itself upright for much longer than a few seconds. "Ash...Ashley..." He whispered her name as he caught her before she fell, lowering her gently in his arms, her one wrist still bound to the chair, but the feeling of her in his arms distracted him from the rest of the world.

Her eyes her still closed as she began tolightly cry, her voice still frail and weak along with the rest of her charredbody. "Shh, shh, you're okay, Ashley..." He whispered to her, tryingto calm her down slightly, his heart pace quickening, his tears multiplying."Medic!" He shouted to the officers downstairs, needing medical attention for the love of his life. "You're going to be okay, baby, I got you, and I'm never letting you go..." He whispered to her, pushing back the knotted hair that had fallen in her face, just barely touching the scabs and burns cocooning her body.

 

"Medic!" He shouted again, tears pouring from his melting eyes, his heart overflowing with pain, determination, and love. He looked back down at the woman in his arms, still seeing her beauty beneath raw, broken skin, unbelieving of the fact that he was holding his wife, to think he ever pondered letting her go. To think that he dropped her case...

He watched her eyelids flitter before opening more than they had, revealing her small, brown to the world again, the world so malignant, cruel, yet gorgeous at the same time. They met with the cracked blue of Seamus', the stare between them killing that beast that had used Seamus' body as a weapon, resuscitating the man he used to be with a single, light breath. He stared deeply into her brown eyes before they closed again, trying her best to fight the pain, but she knew she wasn't alone.

She was in the arms of an angel, those arms she had ever so missed, those eyes that gave her purpose, that voice that soothed her soul, knowing it would help her as he called that word again and again.

For her.

All he heard was silence again.

"Medic...!"


	22. The Smell of Fire

"One...two...three..."

He sat there with his head in his hands, simply counting. He wasn't sure of what, towards what, or even what itself, number just kept dripping off of his tongue, up, they kept counting up. He could've been counting many things, the many things that clouded his mind, all he couldn't stop thinking about, all he saw through his closed eyes.

"...four...five...six..."

Maybe he was counting the hours he had spent there in that room, his legs gone numb, his spine aching, his head pounding, his anxiety worsening as he simply just sat. He closed his eyes to shield them away from the bright hospital lights, he rather preferred the dark. He'd rather prefer anywhere that wasn't in that blue, wooden chair in that waiting room, trying to do his best to obey the room's name.

It was somewhere in the late afternoon, a great possibility of it being night, he didn't know anymore, his back to the windows, his head in his hands, he didn't want it anywhere else, he couldn't allow his mind to wander to another wonderland. He had been sitting there with no patience for longer than he could take. Just waiting, waiting for someone to tell him. Something to tell him. Tell him how she was...

Maybe he was counting the hours.

"...seven...eight..."

Maybe he was counting the people that fell victim to that treacherous house, the people that had suffered through the loss of their life with every single break of their bones, bite on their skin, blade sinking into their flesh. Counting the people that had been taken away by those elegant, lengthy hands, believing a killer's hands couldn't be that soft.

And then he bathed it all in blood, the victims, his hands, that house he dragged them back to for them to wilt away. He let each and every soul possess him to make him stronger, but it was also making him weaker to the true man he was inside behind those broken eyes. Jordan Mathewson was a killer of several, their ghosts standing just behind him in the form of cigarette smoke. And he accepted that they were there, no guilt washed over him unless he returned to that shivering man inside of his hardened shell.

Maybe he was counting the people.

"...nine..."

Maybe he was counting the burns on her body, the sight unable to leave his mind, the scars, the infection, the pain she felt as it was left untreated for days on end. He had seared her skin with the flames of fire and the aid of brimstone to help it burn, the so called punishment for a sin of lust. She was innocent, Seamus told himself, she did care about me, about Stefani, about all...she didn't deserve it...none of them deserved it...

He couldn't stand the condition of her skin, the bubbling of dead skin, a virus collecting within the open wounds, the burning sensation trailing up and down her frail body. Burns on her back, her arms, her legs, her face, even on her scalp, it was amazing that she had survived for as long as she did. But if she would live past that was still a mystery, a mystery that was beginning to tear Seamus in two. He just wanted to see his beautiful wife...one last time...

Maybe he was counting the burns.

"...ten...

"...one...two...three..."

Maybe he was counting to calm himself.

It wasn't working.

He couldn't shake off the sights he had seen within that house, he couldn't shake off the pain, nor the smell, it still overlapped that usual scent of a hospital, clinical supplies and a mixture of overwhelming floor cleaners. He couldn't let it go, he had been told again and again to let go, but those sights, those feelings, those smells were things he'd take to the grave with him, they had him in their grasp, and he'd forever be a victim to the case.

He had been spared of three of the bodies, Joe Esten, Spencer Lovell, and Kevin MacFarlane, but of the ones he did see, he'd have trouble bouncing back from, assuming he eventually would. He would still suffer sleepless nights, three beers bottles at his bedside, constant nightmares during the day, a quiet life, a quiet home, a quiet person to become.

To be silent like those of the dead. Those last words slipping from James Wilson's mouth as did the blood from his severed limbs, the tears to stain his pained face. The final screams from Dexter Manning swallowed by boiling oil, he himself swallowing boiling oil. The begs of Spencer Lovell as he pleaded for his life, no matter how miserable it may have been, what he would do to save it. To be helpless like Kevin MacFarlane when each sense was slowly removed, to lose the ability to feel, to taste, to hear, to smell, to see.

To be silent like Joe Esten as death washed over him slowly, he had to lay there helpless as he was forced to accept his fate. To have your screams muffled under inedible creatures that burrowed through ones system like Dan Gidlow, to feel your flesh torn apart, to feel your organs combust within yourself. To be forced to be quiet by having your lips frozen shut before the rest of your body as did Aleks Marchant, to be cold for so long...and then to feel nothing...

...to feel fire eat your body until you forget what skin feels like on your bones...

...what beauty...

...Ashley...

He turned his head to the side, eyes still closed as he waited, his foot tapping against the tile of the floor, but all he heard was the creak of the floorboards, the mashing of the rug. He took a deep breath to ease his tired lungs, but all he could smell was the mold, the dirt, the rotting flesh, the waste. He bit his lip, simply tasting the blood of a reopened mark. His ears, at first, heard the low sounds of a hospital, the distant beeping of heart monitors, the chatter between nurses and doctors, the crying of patients, of family, of nearly himself.

All to be covered by the echoing screams of the voices that filled his head, the pleads for help, the yells of despair, the tears of sorrow, the shouts as pain coursed their body in their final moments. And all he saw were the bodies, the burned, the boiled, the broken, the poisoned, the suffocated, the frozen, the dismembered, the mutilated. The empty.

That's all he saw in the mirror.

He took another breath in, lifting his head up with open eyes, looking around at a place more unfamiliar than his home. Bright lights, clean space, strangers dressed appropriately for work walking to and from rooms of their patients, but none were the ones tending to his wife. He had waited for what felt like hours, what felt like years waiting for even the slightest of news, just needing to know her state.

Dead. Alive.

There was no in between.

His eyes studied the white wall in front of him, finding a clock in the center, too much time had passed, it was nearing nine at night, another night he wouldn't sleep, but it wasn't so much of a struggle anymore. His eyes followed the red timer that flicked at every hash mark, every number, every second there was to spend, to waste, to wait.

One...two...three...

The hours.

The people.

The burns.

The voices in his head...

They screamed the loudest out of all that wanted to be remembered, the voices of the damned, the voices he did and didn't recognize, the voices he couldn't save, so they shattered him. ...Seamus... Oh god, they were calling his name, they knew his name, that would only draw him in further, make him more vulnerable against himself. Seamus... They were getting closer, starting a ringing in his ears, he couldn't stand it, the spirits were what Jordan owned, but Seamus was left with their voices.

The voice of wrath to scream in his ears. The voice of pride to beg. The voice of envy to whisper and whisper. The voice of greed to wisp in and out like smoke. The voice of gluttony to sicken his mind. The voice of sloth to make him think. The voice of despond to pound against his skull.

And the voice of lust that he wanted to hear so much...

...Seamus...

"Seamus."

His head lifted at that, that true call of his name, a voice out loud, one he knew like the back of his hand, not one to impair his mind with a darkness more malevolent than those eyes of a blue he spent day and night staring into, a darkness within himself, a darkness of a brown haired murderer. He looked to the left of him to see a comfortable sensation walk in the from of all he had left, his friend with bewildered eyes, stress written on his face, and concern smothering his expression.

His blue eyes watched as Eddie took a seat to his right, the tanner man sighing lightly at the weight off of his feet, yet the man couldn't relax once remembering where he was and why, with who and for who. The two were quiet for a moment, a dread hanging above them on a noose, both understanding that a life was on the line, one so important to the man sitting next to him. Seamus' head bowed again, losing eye contact with those brown orbs of glass behind glass.

Eddie cleared his throat lightly, Seamus just needing to hear that accented voice, just needing to hear anything than the quiet, the tapping of his foot, the voices, the numbers trembling off of his tongue. "I...," Eddie started, Seamus lifting his head slowly at the sound, the sound he begged for, "...I called Liz...told her what happened..." Eddie explained only the highlights, keeping it short and sweet, giving it to him straightforwardly instead of tearing Seamus apart.

"...she's on her way with Stef..." He whispered, letting the other know, but hoping it'd take the other's mind off of the events still flashing before his eyes. All Eddie could think of was the frozen body of Aleks Marchant, his skin turning to ice as well as the rest of him, thawing his body took hours. Those words Seamus had said to him prior resurfaced in his head, to stay there, to look away from the others of the house, Eddie now saw their meaning. 

Seamus was already broken, so he sacrificed his own fragmented eyes to the beautiful pain Jordan had created. He'd rather make himself suffer more rather than the pure eyes of someone else, the pure eyes of his friend. Seamus saw those dead bodies he blinded the other from, he walked by them, he observed them, he was attached to one that was still alive, the abused body of his own wife.

He suffered it all to keep Eddie from falling down.

I'd still like to remember you as Edwin Cardona...not as a shell with broken eyes...

Himself.

He was talking about himself.

"...thank you..." Seamus quietly responded, nodding his head at Eddie's kind gesture, sparing the blond of more pain of telling the ones close to him such a truth. Ashley was alive, but with every hope came a doubt to tag along. Death was always an option, a possibility, a questionable reality. A fear to fear itself. Eddie took in Seamus' reply, feeling as if he should be the one to day those words, he saved his best friend from the horrors in life as he plunged himself further into them.

Eddie lowered his head to be level with his friend's, Seamus could feel those full eyes on him, an unpleasant feeling, but he was glad to know that they were still in one piece, free and far from cracks. But he didn't stare back into them. His tired eyes refused. "You okay...?" Eddie muttered, his voice considerably low, keeping it down for the patients and doctors, and for his fragile friend.

Before, the smallest of things could set him off.

Now, being as sensitive as he was...Eddie knew everything was a trigger.

Seamus bit his lip as tears formed in his eyes, shaking his head as an answer, his voice too frail to speak, it breaking within his throat like a heart string, it all felt the same. Eddie sighed at that, but that was an answer he was expecting, how could be okay at a time as such? It was a stupid question to ask if he could already taste the answer. Seamus' eyes lowered, the bags beneath now permanent, it staining and damaging his skin, sleep was alien to him.

Eddie felt at blame for that, alongside the travesties he had gone through, Seamus didn't have support from the man who he thought was his friend. He turned his back on him the moment things grew shaky, siding with all the others just so he didn't feel the pain. So he put Seamus down. He told him false truths that only weighed him down further. He made him cry, lose sleep, lose hope.

And Seamus wore it on his sleeve.

Eddie turned his head away from the other's, focusing on his folded hands in his lap, his nails clean, but his heart dirty with fault. "Sea...I...," Eddie stuttered, not knowing how to phrase the words beginning to crowd his cranium , "...I'm really sorry for all the things I said..." Seamus looked up at the other at that. "...about forgetting Ashley..." Eddie specified, that name didn't hurt Seamus' heart as much, but he guessed he was used to the pain.

"...I shouldn't have said them..." Eddie admittedly spoke, it felt nice releasing the words from his cramped system, they were as cold as ice sliding up his throat, but melted like snowflakes when hitting the air. "I shouldn't have given up hope...I shouldn't have been poison to you...making you believe those horrible things..." He shook his head insensibly, disappointment in the man he thought he was.

His eyes traveled down to Seamus' wedding ring glistening under the hospital lights, it had never truly caught Eddie's eye until that moment, its sight and its worth. What it meant to him when Ashley's soft hands slipped it over his finger, his vow to never break her heart, and that promise that he paraded around with confidence. What it meant to keep her heart beside his, never abuse it, never neglect it, never forget it. What it meant to look down at it when his world was shredding, to try and hold onto the remains of a marriage in the passing, to still hold onto that ring aside the put downs and insults, the judgment and ridicules.

That ring meant more than any badge and gun.

Eddie shook his head as he looked ahead at that white wall, the clock tick tick ticking away the remains of the night. "I deserved that punch in the face..." Eddie confessed, earning a nervous chuckle from himself and from the man beside him. No matter how little or quiet it may have been, it felt nice to hear that laugh of his, some signs of his true self shining through the storm clouds.

Seamus sighed, shaking his head. "No, you didn't..." Seamus tried to fight against, but Eddie's tone stopped the other in its tracks.

"Yes I did." Eddie emphasized, the two meeting one another's eyes, their stare lessening the discomfort. "You had a hunch, and I shouldn't have ignored it." Eddie confided, healing Seamus' blistered feelings with a simple touch of his hand. "You're my friend," Seamus nearly smiled, "I should've been by your side, supporting you through the pain." Seamus looked away, letting a breath out. Help would've been nice, especially from someone he knew well, but he understood that his pain was internal and eternal, every breath he took and set free was coated in pain, it was more than permanent in his lungs.

"I should've been with you, staring at Jordan Mathewson in the eyes, than watch you fall apart from behind that glass." Seamus recollected all of the times he felt those big, brown eyes on his back, just watching, too weak to do anything, too afraid to act in the show, so he reclined to an audience member. And Seamus, in his raged fury and his aching heart, burned the stage to the ground.

Eddie licked his lip. "But with or without me, you did it." He paused, his words soothing Seamus' skin, his boiling, bane blood cooling, his bones sighing from the relief, no matter how temporary. "You found him guilty for more than he was charged with, you tore him to shreds, metaphorically and literally." The two chortled again, the two thinking back between the scuffle between Jordan and Seamus.

That pent up fury Seamus owned was able to release itself, that ticking time bomb exploding in the most destructive, powerful of ways. It extracted its pound of flesh, it swallowed the blood it had been yearning for, it ripped the hair, clawed the skin, beat the body in multiple ways of Jordan Mathewson, tick, tick, ticking. But he, too, earned some scars as he looked down at his left hand, it an ugly, remarkable sight to see.

Leading down from the golden ring was a burn and over the burn a bite, ash and dried blood covering his hand, it still pale like his complexion. The burn was small, but it burned on, the skin irritated, agitated, hurt. The marks of Jordan's sharp teeth created a crescent shape near his middle and fore fingers, the skim trying to repair itself, a slow, buy speedy process. It would definitely scab over, the burn transforming into a scar, a memory just below that ring.

He tucked his hand into his pocket.

Eddie swallowed, his throat numb from his chilly words. "And you found her." Tears sprung in Seamus' eyes, tears he wiped away with his free hand. "We all thought it was a lost hope, but you found her." His voice was beginning to go, that guilt and blame clawing up his throat, wanting to take over, wanting to be seen, to be heard, it leaving scars as he attempted to shove it back down.

"And she's going to be okay..." Eddie told the other, filling him with the faith he had needed from day one, the hardest day of them all, he couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't close his eyes and it pained him further to leave them open. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he couldn't function like he normally would. He was like that for the rest of the days, but day one was the hardest. He could still feel the pain then.

"You're both strong." Seamus felt some credence return to his broken mind, healing the smaller of the cracks, the ones he felt were temporary. "And I know you two will fight for her life..." Eddie whispered, his eyes stinging with tears that threatened to run down his face.

Seamus dipped his head, the words of Eddie comforting him in a way he hadn't felt in so long. He let out a breath, calming himself down, his voice able to speak without breaking or dying off, his mind lucid enough to finally speak itself. He licked his lips, feeling the burn of saliva in the cuts, the bites, the dead skin still hanging onto flesh. "You know...," Seamus began, staring at the tiled floor, "...I admire that son of a bitch Mathewson..."

Eddie looked at his friend with concerned eyes, knowing that his strangled soul was still trapped somewhere in those eyes of Jordan. "He might've ripped me limb from limb...but...his job in doing so..." Seamus shook his head in awe, the map Jordan abided by laid out in his brain, studying every passageway and finding himself confound. "This case was just to get my attention...he needed to set me right before I became a sin...

"...he was a little late, now wasn't it...?" Seamus whispered, feeling Eddie's sympathetic eyed on him, a feeling he hated, a feeling he couldn't get enough of in his pity party for one. He swallowed a thin layer of saliva forming under his tongue. "The whole thing was a game, tying it in with his own personal background to tie me in..." All had been revealed in Jordan's broken eyes, you just had to look hard enough and lose yourself in the process.

"He knew me well..." Seamus' sneered with a hint of a smile. "He'd break me down, he'd manipulate me, trick me into confiding in him as he did with me...only to make me weaker..." Seamus' voice grew still, it just being a few decibels above unheard altogether. "He only did it to add on what he had started..." ...Instead, he was there, the other unknown. He was her company, and he still was in his mind. He was the reason she was gone. And his mind raced with ideas that he and he were of no difference...

Who am I?

"I'm Jordan Mathewson..."

"And all the while, he kept looking at his watch..." Eddie's eyes trailed away, but his ears listened on, intrigued by Seamus' words, he heard that detective within him slightly show himself, but still kept his state a mystery. Dead. Alive. "...that watch that didn't work, but...told time in a way..." Seamus' voice grew rough and raspy, he didn't recognize it, believing he never would again. And that was okay.

"...it told me I was wasting it..." He shook his head, looking down at his lap, the message Jordan tried to send for days on end didn't register in Seamus' mind until that moment. "...that game was to find Ashley..." Scratches and scars carved into his heart, but he was numb to the pain of her name, her name was broken glass he walled upon, but he couldn't feel the blood pouring from his skin. It was bliss.

"And the more time I took for the case meant less time for her live..." The shaking in his hands returned, it catching Eddie's eyes immediately, the black haired man sighing at the anxiety coursing through his friend's body. "...it was my decision of whether or nor she lived..." He choked on a sob falling down his throat. "...God...if it took one more day..." Shaking his head, he placed a fist to his mouth as he weighed himself against the armrest, breathing deeply to keep the tears inside.

"Hey, hey..." Eddie caught the other's attention, grabbing hold of his bruised hands and pulling him out of the pit of depression and fear, hoping it would be the last time. "Don't think about that, Seamus." The other directed, Seamus grabbed by his serious tone of voice. "Don't let that scare you, it didn't happen, it won't happen." He informed the other, shaking away his lurking fears.

Eddie swallowed back the bile and tears that forced themselves against him, he could feel them creeping onto his tongue. "You found her today, alive." Seamus thought he'd never hear that word. "That's all that matters, she is alive because you of." Seamus opened his eyes from a blink too long, feeling his mood towards life change yet again. "And you're alive because of her."

Eddie looked around Seamus to something in the distance, something coming closer, closer, something that would help his point in saving Seamus from the darkness in life, to help him see a reason to live, to strive in the light, but to still have wisps of black smoke like every other soul. "And them." Eddie added, Seamus' blue eyes watching Eddie nod off to the left of the other, Seamus turning his head to see parts of his life colliding and falling together.

"Liz...Stefani..." He whispered, standing up from his seat and walking quickly to the other parts of his heart, the veins, the blood, the tissue itself. His eyes caught first Liz's face, her eyes glistening from afar, the remarkable shine caused by the tears in her eyes, her face streaked with worry, her eyes undeniably tired as she came carrying a load in her arms.

Stefani held onto her aunt as tightly as she could with only a single arm, her other being held back with a sling of another color, a shade of dark chartreuse. But her injury wasn't what made empathy pang in his chest. Her small face was drenched in tears, her eyes scared, her mouth frowning as she kept her sobs quiet. Seamus pushed away tears in his eyes at the sight of her.

Her brown eyes caught ahold of her father's, he had been a sight she had been needing to see, now more than ever. She climbed down from her aunt's soft hold when the two had neared Seamus, and immediately ran into his arms as he knelt down to her height, himself needing her warmth as she needed his. She wrapped her free arm around him as she burrowed herself into his chest and neck, her tears staining his dark shirt.

"Daddy..." She mumbled under his cotton shirt, sniffling over and over as he placed his arms around her, soothingly rubbing her back as he closed his eyes, taking in their embrace. "Daddy...daddy..." She muttered over and over, never being so pleased as to be in his presence, to be in his arms, to feel his heartbeat...

...his heartbeat...

He kissed her temple lightly. "Hey, sweetpea..." He murmured in her arm, rocking her gently to ease her. "Shh, shh...you're okay, you're okay sweetheart..." Her tears fell onto the exposed skin of his neck, in his thirty five years of living, he had never felt tears so cold. He rubbed small circles into her back, kissing the side of her face again. "You're okay...daddy's right here..."

Her shoulders rose and fell as she lightly, her soft weeps hurting Seamus' ears to hear. "Daddy...daddy..." She cried, holding onto him tighter. "I'm scared..." She said in her small voice, those words making the father inside of him show himself to the person who needed him most.

He pulled away from their hug, meeting his daughter's eyes, his thumb wiping away her distraught tears damaging her beautiful eyes. "Don't be scared, sweetie, you're okay..." He told her, tucking a piece of her hair back behind her ear in a loving manner. "You're here with us, we're not going to let anything happen to you..." He smiled lightly as she calmed her sobs, proud to see how strong she was, something she got from Ashley's side of the family.

"I love you so much, honey..." He told her with a little less whimper in his voice, nothing could make him deny the love he owned for his daughter. He leaned in, kissing her forehead lightly along with her broken heart. He pulled back, tears still causing his eyes to swell as he looked up briefly above to see Liz with her head dipped away, a hand pressed to her mouth to keep herself from breaking down, a tear rolling down her pale cheek, her face hadn't always been that light...

He looked back at his daughter, concern rushing through him like a bullet train. "Why don't you go with Uncle Eddie, sweetie?" He asked her as she sniffled lightly, sadness still hovering above her innocent heart. "Let me talk to Aunt Liz for a little bit." Stefani nodded before he kissed her small head again, sending her off with an act of love. She made her way to Eddie's arms as he lifted her, Seamus hearing Eddie's voice coo to her, calming her down.

He took a step forward, standing in front of the breaking woman he knew as his sister in law, her eyes still sparkling in a saddening kind of way. "Is it true?" She asked with a low voice, her lips pursing as another sob threatened to free itself, she could barely hold them back. "You found her?" She sniffed sharply, attempting hard to fight against the tears in her ducts, but at the moment, she was too weak to breathe.

Seamus quietly nodded, answer Liz's question with a simple gesture, those words of truth wouldn't form on his lips, he himself didn't believe it, the only time he fell asleep, his dream tricked him for a fool. The tears multiplied in front of Liz's brown irises, too many feelings overwhelming her at once, she couldn't swallow what she took to chew.

"Do you know how she is? Is she okay?" Liz wondered, her voice breaking, she was on the verge of helplessly crying herself, Seamus couldn't stand the sight. Her eyes didn't quite meet his as they were shifted to the left, she couldn't even look at him in the eye without breaking down into a fit of tears.

Seamus shook his head, looking down at the floor, unable to see the weakness in her eyes, he could barely stand the sight in his own, the cracks covered it, the cracks emphasized it. "I...I don't know..." He admitted, those three words hurting his mind more than the questions themselves. "...they're still running tests, cleaning her up...," He looked at the far wall, another distraction from those dimming, blue eyes, "...I don't know how bad the burns are..."

The shock and fear that spread across her face tore a hole in Seamus' heart, to see her care shove itself forward, only to be met with a torch to its body. "Th...The burns...?" She repeated, hoping she hadn't heard him right, but her ears told her otherwise. She couldn't take the sight her imagination manifested, burns coating the skin of her sister, it leaving scars and pain behind along with memories to haunt. "Oh god..." She muttered, raising her hand to her lips again, forcing her sobs back down.

"Hey...," Seamus whispered to her softly, trying to calm her to the best of his ability, "hey, Liz, it's okay." He told her, placing his hands on each of her shoulders, forcing her to stare into those dispiriting eyes. She sniffled. "When I found her, she was weak, but she was aware." He explained to her, showing her the benefit of the doubt. "She knew who I was...she reached out to me..." Tears dissipated in his own eyes as he thought about her inner strength, her drive to hold out her hand, to show she needed help, needed him.

As he blinked his tears vanished.

"She's going to fight."

Liz was taken aback by his words, his tone, his eyes, they had all changed from the last time she saw him, he didn't seem like the same person she had grown to fear. His eyes weren't so tired, his outlook not so bleak, his lips didn't pout, his ducts didn't cry, his hands didn't shake due to his anger or anxiety. His demeanor seemed determined, a bit of brawn returning to his weak muscles. His eyes looked brighter, Liz could sense that the reason was his passion. His words owned more meaning as he spoke the words he had with sentiment and truth, he owned faith, something hard to keep and something hard to obtain.

He had faith.

And this was the man she had grown to care for.

"Seamus..." She lightly sobbed as her body nearly collapsed, she had been in a state of vulnerability for nearly all of her life, and now she had someone strong to rely on as she let it out. Seamus took a step closer to her, wrapping her fit frame with his arms, her head resting on his shoulder as she returned his friendly gesture.

He rubbed her back lightly, that connection, that interaction, that touch he craved simply soothed by the care he could offer to someone else. He let go of a large breath slowly, feeling his lungs relax for the first time in twenty eight days. "Shh...everything's going to be fine, Liz...you're okay, I'm okay, and so is Ashley..." He opened his eyes, the words feeling so simple to say, he knew it was what was meant to be.

She held onto him tighter, bringing her chest closer to his, her heartbeat closer to his. His heartbeat... "Thank you..." She whispered in his rather small ear, Seamus feeling her body beginning to shake. "Thank you for finding her...thank you..." She muttered, finding it harder, yet easier to breathe. "She's going to be okay...," She told herself, willing to believe, "...she's okay..."

They pulled away, both needing more warmth, but knowing they could never get enough. Liz wiped away the remains of tears under her eyes, recovering from her loss of composure, taking breath after breath to return to that woman she thought herself to be. The woman she was. The two met each other's recuperating eyes, seeing the suffrage, but hope within them, hope that came along with two little words.

"Mr. O'Doherty?"

He turned to see a nurse walking his way, her blond hair pulled back, her hand coming up to push her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. "Yes?" Seamus replied with an unsure tone of voice, knowing the news she was about togive was either of two options, good, bad. There was no in between. There were no exceptions. "Is...is everything okay...?" He asked as the nurse met him fully, Liz standing behind with watchful eyes and listening ears.

The small nurse cleared her voice quietly. "Your wife's condition is stable." She told him, some color returned to his eyes, to the world at that, at those words, life was much more than black, gray, and red. He saw blue. He was beginning to see blue. "She had a mild infection on her wounds, but with antibiotics, she'll be fine." The nurse explained, a pencil tucked behind her right ear. "You're lucky you found her when you did, a day or more, and her infection would have grown worse."

...if it took one more day...

He felt his throat tighten.

"It seems that her burns were inflicted anywhere from forty-eight to seventy-two hours ago." His mind sprung with an epiphany, a realization of when the game really started, day one was just the transformation Seamus had to undergo to weaken him, it was all just a game. The day Jordan was brought into custody was the day he burned Ashley O'Doherty, he anticipated the time it'd to find him, and anticipated well.

He left her body suffering and scorching as he went back to his own home, waiting. Waiting for the police to arrive, waiting to he interrogated, waiting to see those big, blue eyes of the man of the hour, Detective Seamus O'Doherty. Waiting...so he could test him. Turn him. Taunt him and teach him, trick him and trap him. The man had patience, persistence, and always the upper hand.

And now the game was in its final countdown.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"H...How long is she going to be staying here?" He pondered, knowing that time wasn't on his side, it was always mocking him from every corner of the room, wasting it, wasting it. How long? Weeks? Months? Forever? Never?

Twenty eight days?

The nurse's shoulders rose shortly. "It's...unknown as for now," He hated that word, "what we're focusing on now is getting her back to the healthy body weight of women her age, and trying to get her to speak." Seamus listened well, upset by the fact that he wasn't able to hear his lover's voice after so long. "Her voice is very weak from lack of hydration, it's best she doesn't attempt to talk just yet, spare her pain.

"She was fed and given water very lightly for about a month, but wasn't given anything once her skin was burned." Seamus closed his eyes as he nodded, gesturing that he understood the information alongside the pain, he could still hear Stefani's light sniffles in the back, hoping she wasn't listening in. Yet she couldn't help, but listen to the pain her mother experienced.

Stefani understood.

Seamus sighed as he opened his eyes, another matter coming to his mind, one he refused to talk about, but the truth screamed for it to be said. Seamus cleared his throat, keeping his voice quiet, fear of the others to hear. Of Stefani to hear. "M...My wife, she...," tears re-coated his eyes, "she...she was...also pregnant..." The nurse's face wore a look of shock and sympathy. "...is there...a possibility that..." He shook his head, unable to say the words, but the woman before him received the message.

Her head dipped as it lowered to one side, her mouth opening, but for a moment, no words came out.

"I...I'm sorry, Mr. O'Doherty..."

He looked away, lips closed.

It was a while before the nurse chose to speak again. "...But...she's resting well." She tried to turn things around, herself trying to ignore the fact that the two, husband and wife, had lost a child who didn't get the chance to breathe. "Her vitals are normal, too, but...," she swallowed, "she's suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, which is understandable." She finished, Seamus' eyes still aimed away at the ground, his mind still processing the information he was given all at once.

Weight just piled itself onto his shoulders, the stress becoming greater, the blue he started to see fading away slightly to a light azure, an azure lighter than his eyes, paler than his skin. His wife had been abducted and held hostage for twenty five days, she was burned and left for dead for three, and on top of that she had lost the child in her womb, suffered from extreme fear, and was unable to even speak.

Seamus closed his eyes, fighting through the pain. "Could we see her?" He quietly asked, glancing back up into the nurse's round eyes, going for broke, giving it a try just to see, to see, his wife.

He sighed in relief as the small woman nodded, his fingers feeling light on his hands. "Of course," she accepted, taking a step back as she was going to lead them, "familiar faces should help calm her down." She noted, Seamus taking those words the aide spoke into effect for himself, after the many times of seeing his own face become more of a stranger's in the mirror, his nerves eased with the thought of seeing a face he hadn't in a while, with or without a voice.

"You go ahead, Sea." He heard Eddie's voice direct him, Seamus spinning around to see his friend's eyes, to see his friend's arms holding Stefani warmly, to see his friend's lips that just let those words into the air. "We'll be right behind you." He told him, showing the other a small smile, Seamus cupping the message in his hands.

Given the directions and room number from the nameless nurse, Seamus began to walk his frail legs down the hospital corridor, his throat incredibly dry as his mind starting to sway. His eyes hadn't felt so tired before, they just wanted to close, close and, frankly, never wake up. His hands grew clammy, his mind ran free and came spiraling down as the gravity of fear took over.

He wasn't sure what he was afraid of, he had convinced all the others that there was nothing to be frightened of, but here he was, fearing. What? Whom? Why? Jordan Mathewson was still in that interrogation room, bleeding out, bleeding into himself. His friend and family were waiting for him a room of that name. His wife was alive after all that time, and he was on his way to see her again.

But that fear remained as he took step after step towards her door.

He walked by a room on his left, a large window was present to show inside of the room to the outside, but the curtains in front prevented the window from doing its job. It only reflected with help of the overhead lights, and Seamus saw his reflection as he sauntered by, although his image was nearly translucent, the cracks in his eyes still stood out like light during the evening.

Seeing himself like that, he realized his fear. Himself. Strung up, strung out, upside down and lost was how he found himself, and it still scared him to the day. He changed into a man he could never get used to, but he couldn't change back, the work was done, that unfamiliar face stitched onto him. Those broken eyes were there to stay, those darkened bags were permanent, that frown only ever a smile when it was forced to be.

He didn't look like himself anymore, and he knew his eyes to see it weren't the only ones. The nurse had said a familiar face, a familiar face would help Ashley to stay calm, but how was he to help her if he himself didn't look the same? He was disgusted with the man in the mirror, and petrified of what he could do. He was scared to go into that room, not just to see his poor, feeble wife, but to see what himself would do.

Pull the plug on her or himself.

He choked on a breath as he looked to his left, meeting pale door after pale door, number combination after number combination, until he met that certain pale door, that certain combination that clicked in his mind. He looked around, there was no window, there were no curtains, only a simple door that lead him straight for his wife, straight for the knife.

He felt a pain in his abdomen as he gripped the doorknob, his tongue riding over his teeth as he swallowed again, his head feeling lighter as he turned the doorknob lightly, preparing himself for the moments after. He pushed the door open slowly, the hinges silently giving off a creak, not one to make his heart jump, surely not one to make her own do the same. He closed his eyes briefly, expelling another breath, his stomach feeling too tight for comfort.

He took a step inside, his eyes leading themselves across the floor, up the side of her bed, and to her herself, body, face, mind, and soul. He closed the door lightly, feeling a lump form in his throat that stopped him from talking, but no words could capture the moment then. He took a second step inside, himself feeling as if he were balancing on thin ice, the slightest step could sink him to the bottom.

He thought he had already hit it weeks ago.

From the distance he stood, he saw her eyelids open in a fragile way, she was responsive to her surroundings, a sign that proved that she was still there. She coughed lightly to clear her throat, her face owning an expression of pain as it burned to simply swallow, let alone speak. She licked at her dried lips of a light color, vaguely tasting blood on her tongue, a taste she had gotten used to with time.

She slowly turned her head to the side, her neck sore and aching as a pillow cushioned it from underneath, her throat from the outside numb from the agents and ointments nurses and doctors applied moments before. Her eyes fell slightly, herself tired as she hadn't slept comfortably in nearly a month, they met the floor before climbing back up, seeing a figure standing just by her bed.

She continued to look upward until she was met with a chest and a pair of slightly hunched shoulders, arms by the sides and hands shaking, a habit she noticed, a habit she recognized, she recognized those hands. She saw a neck with a bump in the throat, followed by a head. A face. Hair, eyes, nose, a mouth, glasses slightly fogged, jawline owning more stubble than usual.

Her eyes watered, unable to say anything to the presence she acknowledged, every word left unsaid, but she was out of breath, her throat needing time to repair itself. She took a breath in through her mouth, ignoring the burn she felt on the roof of her mouth, her eyes still locked on that man beside her, and so was her heart.

Seamus stole another step, and then another, guiding himself to her bedside, his eyes, too, overflowing with tears, turning his blue eyes to crystal. He himself could not speak, finding himself lost for words, unable to wrap his head around what he was experiencing, it all being to big for him to handle. And as he looked down for a slight second, he lost control of his feelings, detaching himself from his brain.

He aimed his head down to see her arm extended outward towards him like before, before when she was begging for help, for freedom, to be saved from pain, misery, death. Now there it was again, yearning to be held, to be reassured that she wasn't alone, to be relieved of the lonely pain dwelling inside of her. Up and down her arm she wore burns of all sorts, some parts bandaged, some parts scanning over as new skin pushed through. The dirt was cleaned from under nails and in her cuticles, her skin back to that porcelain white.

Her wedding ring still shone.

He sat down on the side of her bed, he was beginning to see the color white, white of her blankets, white of her sheets, her pillows, the color of her hand as he took it in his own, gently caressing her skin, soothing her palpitating wounds. He focused on the red, the black, the gray of the sheer horror, how ugly every mark was. But looking up to her face...her cheeks showing some color, her eyes turning back to that color of brown, her hair pulled back and cleaned. She was the beauty of the darkness.

His other hand leisurely met the side of her face, careful towards the infection ridden brands that caused her flesh to smell like smoke. He held her face at the maxilla, the feeling of his skin against her returning to his heart, bringing it back to life, that soft slice of heaven he convinced himself didn't exist. It was buried within her body all along, finding her would cure him, not entirely, but it would help.

She pressed her face closer to his palm, taking in its warmth, taking in the love that came along with such a small gesture. How she had missed that, the feeling of familiarity, to feel safe. She cringed at the feeling of having his hands on her, those bloodstained paws that tore her body apart, that branded her body from head to toe, that told her she was beautiful before stealing that beauty away, calling her filthy names and terrible things.

She never really got to look at him in the eye, never seeing his face, it was always covered with shadows, hidden on purpose, or she looked away entirely, afraid of him. All she knew of him was his voice, deep, husky, low. She heard it whisper her name, tell her about the wrongs in her life, how she was a trick, how she was selfish, how her husband and daughter were meaningless to her. She could never forget that voice, and the one she wanted to hear was overlapped by silence.

She started to cry.

It was rough on her vocal chords, but she couldn't help the tears rolling down her face and into the cuts and burns below, her face on fire...just like before... Smoke in her eyes, in her nose, down her mouth and into her lungs, breathing, breathing in Hell, breathing. Her frame soon began to tremble as her sobs grew heavy, her tears bleeding onto the hand on her cheek, Seamus' eyes growing sad st the sight.

He whispered her name, the sound only making her weep quietly more, the voice of the man she loved hard to hear in both aspects. He pulled his arms away, his hands leaving her own and her face, the cold refilling the warmth that began to stick to her skin. Instead, he opened his arms to her, motioning for her to come closer, he needed to calm her while helping himself, to just hold onto the one thing that kept him going...

She sat up straighter, groaning slightly due to the discomfort that surged throughout her body, her nerves like glass, every movement broke one and sent the glass to coil around her hardening blood. Ashley slowly leaned forward, her back aching as the cold air of the room attacked it, slowly inching herself towards her husband's arms.

Seamus wrapped himself around her, her head daintily resting on his shoulder, her arms lightly holding him in return, holding on the tightest that they could despite her lack of energy, her tears trickling down Seamus' neck and staining the shirt he wore. He whispered sweet nothings to her as she tried to calm her sobs, rubbing her back as gently as possible, lightly running his fingertips over the burns, tickling them.

He turned his head to the side, waiting a moment before kissing her temple, kissing her never felt so right. He pulled his lips away, taking in a breath as he stopped his own tears, he could feel heartbeat more than hear it on the monitor beside her bed, this was real, out of everything, this was real. He held her a little closer, never wanting to let her frail body go, fear of losing her to the world again, fear of losing her to the hands of a murderer.

He took a large breath in, smelling a scent that was oddly familiar, a scent that would never leave his nose, his memory, his mind, even just a trace of it would speak the memories in his head. She smelled like smoke, an unbearable amount of smoke, not of cigarettes, but of the fire and brimstone that cooked her. The smell of fire took over her own lovely scent of sugar and fruit, it only replaced by ashes, smolder, and a fog too thick to take in.

He pulled away from their hug after a few moments longer, needing to see her eyes again, he needed to reassure himself that she was really here, not a charade played by his wicked imagination to leave him feeling emptier inside. He looked at her brown eyes beginning to glow brighter, that bubbly color of root beer showing itself to his eyes.

He wiped at a few of her tears, the light motion easing her, her weeps fading, but the tears remained, Seamus couldn't blame her as they still rolled down his face, too. He let go of a breath, holding both sides of her face, silently grateful for the woman before him to be alive, she was more than he ever was. The two just stared into one another's eyes, finding their worth, and smiling when seeing how much it had grown since the last time.

She smiled.

She...smiled...

They were interrupted by a light tap at the door, Seamus' head flashing over in an instance, his reflexes sharpened, slightly due to his skills as a detective, slightly caused by the paranoia Jordan gave. Ashley's head slowly turned back that way, her muscles torn and pulled, it hurt her to simply breathe, to simply blink.

But their hearts soon relaxed at the sight of a familiar face entering the room holding the hand of the reason for more tears to expel from Ashley's eyes. As soon as their eyes locked, Stefani ran from her aunt's grip, climbing onto the side of the bed the best that she could with one arm, and held her mother close, tears and cries filling the silence of the room from the both of them. Seamus sighed at the sight, pleased to see that Stefani could be reunited with her mother, the separation painful.

Stefani whispered that name over and over, the name of a mother that was long missed, the name she grew depressed when saying, but now, it was all Stefani could repeat, all she could mumble. Liz wiped at her eyes, pulling off her glass and hooking them onto the collar of her shirt, taking a seat on the other side of the bed, smiling lightly at Seamus before focusing on her sister.

Ashley kissed Stefani's head over and over, the kisses Stefani had needed since everything had gone down, the kisses that repaired her heart bit by bit. Ashley held her daughter with one arm, her other holding her sister's in peace with her being there, Liz couldn't keep her eyes on her sister for a second without looking away, tears clouding her vision. Seamus could only smile down at his wife, to see the small grin she owned meant the world, the universe.

He paused, feeling something in his chest realign, it was a sensation that was uncomfortable at first, but he slowly adjusted to it. What he felt was his life regaining order, the pieces of a puzzle unsolved falling back into their places, his heart, his mind, his soul, his reason to live turning into reasons, it heart pumped again, blood rushing to the bones of his body, replenishing them over and over.

His veins connected with one another, his nerves settled down, but still reacted to pain when needed. The tears still swarmed his eyes, but his emotions were intact, he could actually feel again. He may have been crying, but his tears were of joy, of rejoice, of that hope he had trouble managing. The last thing he felt shuffle into place was his personality, the soul of himself that gave into the fight after the first blow. That man he wished he was again, that man he missed took control of his fingers again, of his hands, arms, legs, he came back.

Seamus shivered while that piece made itself at home, but he felt so warm once it found its place.

Ashley looked up from smiling down at her daughter back to Seamus' eyes, the sight causing her to beam brighter, her lips quivering, but to see her full of life was all Seamus needed. She glanced at his eyes as if it were the first time she saw them, they were young, innocent, full of wonder and awe. But he still owned a crack in the right hand corner of his left eye.

Ashley wore one to match.

"Seamus?" He heard a familiar voice ask for him at the door, the blond turning to see his friend standing in the doorway, a cellphone placed lightly in his hand, his face written with concern, a sight that made Seamus' heart jump. Eddie cleared his throat, "I hate to take you away from all of this, but...can I talk to you for a moment?"

Seamus looked at his friend, then to his wife, he had just gotten to hold her after so long, he didn't want to leave her side, nothing was an exception, not even his own wellbeing. But as he studied the beautifully burned woman he called his wife, she nodded her head, telling him to go, she'd be alright. That's what he thought, but he worried over the fact that once he came back to her, she'd simply be a crinkle in the sheets.

He kissed her head lightly, brushing a hand through Stefani's long hair as the seven year old ceased her cries, she simply laid next to her mother's side, her head resting on her mother's recovering chest, listening to each beat of her heart, thanking someone above for every one. He was reluctant to leave their sides, but after slight hesitation, he made his way to the hallway to speak with Eddie.

Eddie sighed, shoving his phone into his rear pocket. "I...I just got an update from Moss on the case." Eddie informed, Seamus silent as he listened, he was still lost for words, his voice box unable to communicate along with his mind. "They place Mathewson in a holding cell at the state prison, his trial is in a month." Seamus nodded at that, his eyes falling down to Eddie's shoes that wore a layer of melted snow on the tops and sides.

"Moss says prison for life is a possibility, either that, or the death penalty a few weeks after the trial." Eddie's voice shuddered as he spoke, Seamus wondering why, it wasn't the cold in the slightest, the snow on his shoes had melted to show proof, but perhaps it wasn't the temperature he quavered due to. "It serves him right for all the shit he did," Eddie commented, shaking his head at the thought of it, looking at Ashley's hospital door, to think of the things Jordan Mathewson was capable of, what he would've done if not caught, and what he would do now that he was.

"He's being charged with thirteen accounts of murder..."

Seamus' world stopped at that, the man lifting his head from Eddie's shoes to his eyes, his own reading confusion and disturbance. Jordan Mathewson was only being charged with a majority of his murders when he had committed fifteen, two of those victims left to roam the earth as a troubled soul just passing by. After the work and sacrifice Seamus had suffered and created, the case still wasn't finished, his cries left unheard alike the voices trapped inside of that house on Melbourne Drive, a tomb for rotting corpses.

Seamus shook his head, mumbling words under his breath as his voice returned to him, a sound still unfamiliar to his ears. "No...no, he...," His mind was racing as he tried to concentrate on his speech, unable to get his point across, Eddie left in utter bafflement. "...he killed fifteen..." Seamus whispered, Eddie raising an eyebrow above the other at his few words. "J...Jordan killed fifteen, Ashley would have been the sixteenth...

"T...They have it wrong, Eddie..." Their eyes of different hues met full on, blue absorbing brown and brown absorbing blue. "No, he killed fifteen people, they're forgetting about one, James Wilson, Joe Esten, Dexter Manning..." His mouth rambled on and on, feeling anxiety weight him down, his stomach churning. "They forgot one, and...and there was another 'despond' victim from 2010, there was someone else, Ed..." Seamus' voice trailed off as he gazed at Eddie's face, the tan man looking down at the floor, a sight Seamus' eyes couldn't stand to see.

Eddie shook his head, licking at his bottom lip. "There wasn't a second despond victim, Seamus...there wasn't even a first..." Eddie whispered, forcing himself to look back into those blue eyes that still frightened him, although they recovered themselves to the best of their ability, they still owned that presence within them that wanted to be feared, that feasted on that terror, basked in it like sunlight.

Eddie paused, fearing those eyes.

"And Kevin MacFarlane wasn't found at the scene."


	23. You Will Applaud

Seamus sat in darkness, finding it as the light.

He blankly stared ahead, seeing nothing, but seeing all, his senses heightened as he slowly let one fade, his vision focused on the blank wall ahead of him, lights dimmed to make it gloomier, the room, the setting, his heart. There shone not a light, the room faded with color as Seamus simply sat, his mind running in circles, circles. It pounded with a pain he was used to, but he let it hurt.

His mind ran in circles.

He pressed his hand closer to his waist, his hears hearing the soft crinkling of the plastic bag he held, he couldn't bare to look at it, but the contents he had memorized. A handbag almost the size of a wallet, the pattern stained onto it being a field of flowers, there was red, pink, yellow, green. Within it was the usual, money, credit cards, receipts, prescriptions, a driver's license holding such a familiar face, a face he'd never be able to capture again in life.

He held the bag closer, his fingers rolling over something from behind that thin plastic, something beautiful, yet he wouldn't dare to see it anywhere, but around her neck. From the bottom of his eye, could see it shine even without a light to help, but perhaps it was due to everything he saw was through tears. His fingers ran over it again and again, it kept slipping from his grasp, but then he'd hold onto the next.

In the bag was a pearl necklace, something Seamus always saw her wear, it held so many memories when dangling from her neck, although it was her possession, it meant more to himself than anything, something from his childhood, something as he turned into an adult, something so meaningful and meaningless now. He turned another pearl in his right hand, unable to feel that luster as the bag held it in restraints.

That's all that was in the bag, not much to hold onto as soon his mind would grow old, memories fading as those objects remained in his hands, a purse and some pearls to remember someone who meant so much more. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, letting a breath out, accepting a reality he never thought he would have to. The bag crinkled again in his hand, it moved with every movement of his lungs, breathing, something she could not.

His reaction was poor only because his world grew numb, he couldn't process it any more than he could believe it, and everytime he blinked, it only made things worse. He couldn't hear what else the nurse had to say once she sat him down, her lips only moving, that small voice of her silent to his ears. But he heard all he had needed to and was given all that was left, her tiny hands placing that bag in his lap, that bag he didn't let go of, those words he didn't let go of.

His mother had passed away in her sleep during the night prior.

He had visited her hours before her demise, hearing her voice one last time, seeing her face one last time, hearing her heartbeat in his ear one last time, for the last time. She withered away in that hospital bed, become frailer as the days went on, only to become a recollection of when times were better. To think if he arrived a few hours before, a few hours later, to see his mom pass before his eyes would've shocked him out of reality permanently. But even her death now did just that.

He tried to cope in the little time he was given alone, he tried. Saying she was with her husband again, she was in a better place, she was finally at peace instead of feeling every pain of her battle with leukemia. But he couldn't allow himself to think such a thing when he wasn't even sure if heaven existed, if there was a God, if there was a devil. He couldn't admit something that he wasn't even sure was true, he wasn't sure where she went, where his father went, where those dozen souls in that house went. Where he would go.

Where she would.

He took a light breath in through his nose, turning his head to the left to follow where his other hand was placed, it was holding the recovering one of his wife as she slept soundly for the first time in a month, the first time he was pleased to see her eyes closed. She slept one her side, Seamus watching her shoulders rise and fall with every inhale she took. Her burns seemed lighter in the dark, memories of her own simply fading away behind closed eyes.

But Seamus refused to close his, everytime he did, she disappeared, and that sickening case tore apart his mind, what she found herself victim to, a captive in a house of brimming with blood and smelling of six other rotting corpses. It wasn't a house, it was a torture chamber for the damned, a prison for the innocent, the dwelling of a madman with a righteous mind, and a story to tell.

Seamus would forever be reminded of that case, he wore a reminder on his finger and around his arm, a ring and the other to wear one. Everytime he saw her face, he saw her beauty, the reason he fell in love with her all of those years ago. But now he saw all of those other faces along with her's. Gray eyes, yellow hair, tan skin, scars, bites, pieces missing, pieces broken, torn apart, caving in.

The pile of detached limbs of James Wilson resting below himself. The frozen skin of Aleks Marchant that turned his blood, his bones, his biological structures nothing, but ice. The ripped organs of Daniel Gidlow that festered with pests and disease. That boiled skin of Dexter Manning that coated his eyes and everything on the inside.

The snapped bones of Spencer Lovell that hung like lifeless branches of a tree. The blood turned venom of Joe Esten that settles within in ossein, the outside just as dangerous as the in. The burned skin of Ashley O'Doherty that began to infect her body.

And the missing body of Kevin MacFarlane.

The missing person.

Seamus heard Eddie's words repeat over in his caves for ears, that accent explaining that the case wasn't closed, Mathewson may have been in jail, but his labyrinth he forced some into still continued. And not with a dead body, but with a live one. Kevin MacFarlane was described as despond, the loss of hope and faith, forever remaining helpless and apathetic, no meaning in life and no life with meaning. A sin removed from the rest that Jordan held in his palm, one he found unlike the others, one he took advantage of.

One he found himself as.

He referred to himself as a sin, Seamus picking it up from frequently in his memory than he did then staring into that dirty soul. He himself was not the devil, but just a mere sin like everyone else, he, too, was cursed with God's wrath created by the devil, and he would also pay. But as what, he never said. He was a sin, but he never spoke of which, of what. Seamus tossed it around in his bruised mind before discovering the last pieces of the puzzle.

Jordan was not of lust, he did not enjoy the sexual encounters displayed in front of him, nor the inhumane rape placed upon him. He was not of gluttony, he ate no more than snake, eating one small meal at a time to last him for weeks. He was envious of some owning perfect lives, but he soon found the meaning within his own. He thought of himself higher than others, but was not of pride, he took charge of his life unlike sloth, he made other's suffer, but it wasn't for his own pleasure, his own wrath.

He guided himself from the depths of his childhood, and found new meaning for himself. He taught himself how to act, how to train, how to hunt, kill, and prey. He created his own monster, something even he was afraid of, something that was losing control, but he liked to see himself that way. So he fed the yearn with the blood of others, the conversations with detectives, cigarette after cigarette after cigarette.

Jordan Mathewson was despond as well, that missing first victim that was still alive.

Kevin MacFarlane was despond.

That second victim that was still alive.

Jordan needed to set Seamus right, but in doing so, he needed to reveal himself, his work would end as he'd be behind bars. So he took someone who was lost in their life and rearranged every cell in their body to obey him, he took charge of them, hypnotized them. He said he took away Kevin's senses, but in that, he only meant his sight, he showed him how evil the world was, and persuaded him to set it right. While Jordan was gone and his reign ended, his work would continue of killing the sins on earth from someone who learned well.

The case wasn't over. Jordan only handed the reigns to Kevin, the killer was still out there, waiting to repeat history, waiting to get Seamus' attention again. His felt his heart pound against his chest in fear, to think that there was someone else out there who knew who you were, watched you in your time of privacy, and then attacked when the time seemed right. He admitted it in his mind, he was afraid of Jordan Mathewson, and terrified of Kevin MacFarlane.

Tears still consumed Seamus' eyes as he thought, paranoia sticking needles within his skin, pricking and prodding his flesh like a thousand eyes all over the room, he could still feel Jordan's as they pierced him, he could still feel Ashley's from behind her closed lids, he could still feel Eddie's from behind that glass. Now...now he could feel another, another pair of brown eyes stuck on him, either they were there or they weren't, but he felt them.

The eyes of a killer.

The eyes of Kevin MacFarlane.

That was the last trick up Jordan's sleeve, all those twists and turns racking Seamus' mind came to an end, leaving Seamus in a permanent pain, it didn't grow worse, but it wouldn't get better. All those smirks Jordan threw at him, all of those smiles, those threats, what those eyes told him, what those lips didn't, what his mind figured out alone.

He figured out that there is good in this world, and there is bad. One can triumph the other in any situation, sometimes the better wins, other times it's evil. The good takes over the battlefield while the bad rot and decay into the deadened ground. At moments, the bad grabs hold of the upper hand as it's the good that watches in silence. Suffers in silence. Dies in silence. There is no in between. Either you're good or bad, raging or silent, dead or alive.

And at times, you can't tell which you are, dead or alive.

He still couldn't tell.

Dead. Alive.

The final act of Jordan's show had pulled the curtain closed as the murderer took bow after bow from behind metal bars. Seamus only stared at the empty stage, paralyzed from the emotions thrown at him all at once, the world quiet and dark, he felt as if there were others there, but in his mind, it was always just him, alone. He couldn't comprehend what had played before his eyes over the few days it had been, what had been revealed, what still was left to think over, what was left to fade away, what was what left to haunt, what Seamus would take away from his uprising and revelation.

But it wasn't something he would take away. It was something he would give, and something that would echo through the ages.

"...You'll remember me..."

"...I wanted someone to see my final act..."

"...And I will hear you applaud, detective...

"...you will applaud..."

Seamus sat in darkness, finding it as the light.

Slowly, he clapped.

And he clapped.

And he clapped.


End file.
